The story
- Italian · borrowed fromrubato“robbed, stolen”
- English todayrubato
Borrowed from Italian rubato (“robbed, stolen”), since the time is "borrowed".
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
rubato
Today it means: A tempo in which strict timing is relaxed, the music being played near, but not on, the beat. Full definition →
Italian rubato