1. Orchestral music played at the beginning of an opera or oratorio 
2. Something that serves as a preceding event or introduces what follows
   "drinks were the overture to dinner"
   - preliminary, prelude 
3. A tentative suggestion designed to elicit the reactions of others
   - advance, approach, feeler

Derived forms: overtures

Type of: inception, music [archaic], origin, origination, proffer, proposition, suggestion

Encyclopedia: Overture

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