English 'soprano' comes from Italian 'soprano' (upper, above), from Latin 'suprā' (above), from PIE *upér (over) — the same root that independently gave English 'over' through Germanic and 'hyper' through Greek, naming the highest voice part as literally 'the one above.'
The highest singing voice in women and boys, or a singer with such a voice.
From Italian 'soprano' (the highest vocal register, that which is above all others), derived from the preposition and adverb 'sopra' (above, over, on top of), from Vulgar Latin *suprana, from Latin 'supra' (above, over, on the upper side, beyond), the feminine ablative singular of 'superus' (upper, higher, that which is above). Latin 'supra' and 'superus' derive from 'super' (over, above), connected to PIE *uper or *upo (up, over — a directional root expressing vertical position or movement). This PIE root *upo is extraordinarily productive across the family: from Latin came 'super' (over, above), 'superior,' 'supreme' (superlative of super), 'summit,' 'surmount,' and 'soprano' itself; from Greek came 'hyper' (over, beyond —
For much of operatic history, the soprano parts that audiences now associate with female singers were performed by castrati — men who had been surgically altered before puberty to preserve their high voices. The most famous castrato, Farinelli (Carlo Broschi), was the biggest musical celebrity of eighteenth-century Europe. The practice declined after the late eighteenth century, and women fully claimed the soprano range.