Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small hexagonal accordion with bellows and with buttons for keys.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A musical instrument invented by Professor Wheatstone, the principle of which is similar to that of the accordion. It is composed of a bellows, with two faces or ends, generally polygonal in shape, on which are placed the various stops or studs, by the action of which air is admitted to the free metallic reeds that produce the sounds.
Wiktionary
- n. music A musical instrument, like the various accordions, that is a member of the free-reed family of musical instruments, typically having buttons on both ends.
- n. Something resembling a concertina, such as a folded book, a bus door or a set of picture frames that are folded together.
- n. A type of booklet label, consisting of up to 32 pages of booklet as an insert.
- v. to become compressed into a shape reminiscent of a concertina
- v. to be drawn closer and farther apart repeatedly, or up and down, as if situated on a working concertina's folds
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A small musical instrument on the principle of the accordion. It is a small elastic box, or bellows, having free reeds on the inside, and keys and handles on the outside of each of the two hexagonal heads.
WordNet 3.0
- n. coiled barbed wire used as an obstacle
- n. free-reed instrument played like an accordion by pushing its ends together to force air through the reeds
- v. collapse like a concertina
Etymologies
- concert + Italian -ina, feminine diminutive suff. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I'd like to see these communists tarred, feathered, roped in concertina, and dunped just south of the US international border.”
“The sight of this, Alda declared, made her ill; though the little boy was as docile as he was helpless; but it was quite true that to nerves and ears not inured from the first, Theodore's humming and his concertina were a trial from their perpetuity.”
“The concertina, which is somewhat like an accordion but smaller and with buttons but no keys, has a well-deserved reputation for being hard to learn.”
“The humidifier needs a replaceable 'wick' - a kind of concertina-like filter.”
“There is a minimum range which if the hoard was able to reach would require the artillery be either moved or abandoned, but the numbers destroyed up to that point would be huge Also, though a theoretical zombie hoard would be able to overcome conventional countermobility measures such as concertina wire or barbed wire entanglements by simply climbing over the zombies entangled in the obstacle, arranging such defenses in depth would deplete the horde as more and more of the zombies became part of the landscape.”
“Kind of like building high walls, installing concertina wire and setting an alarm when I go to bed.”
“We, therefore, put up some concertina wire atop our surrounding stone walls and, so far, have had no additional problems since.”
“We also built a new interior wall defining a carport and ensuring us privacy and increased the exterior wall size from four feet to eight feet and installed concertina wire on top of that plus an elaborate motion-detector, fully monitored alarm system to thwart burglars.”
“It was wonderful and my first time hearing a concertina at a real concert.”
“He directed from the harpsichord for all the concert – except the bit he directed from the concertina, sitting at the harpsichord.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘concertina’.
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sheep and goats
sheep and more sheep and some
slang for sheep,films that feature sheep ,have you heard of sheeple?
and goatsancon, ammon, argali, bharal, burrel, burrell, burhel, burrhel, bighorn, billy, blackface, broadtail and 144 more...
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Steampunk
Words used quite often in steampunk
ansible, airship, chymical, valve, clockwork, dirigible, thaumaturgy, copper, bronze, difference engine, gear, rivets and 516 more...
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Accordions, et al
Words or phrases associated with the accordion and its family—free reed aerophones. And, please, wisecracks.
bellows, squeeze, aerophone, bayan, concertina, squeeze box, stomach steinway, windjammer, ship's piano, belly organ, pleated piano, waistline wurlitzer and 25 more...
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The braggadocio recipe
A selection of English* words ending with a vowel (except "y", "ea", ie", "ee", "oo", "ea", "ou") that is REALLY pronounced.
My favorite English words, by the way.
The good twin of The ...braggadocio, recipe, encyclopedia, solo, gnu, flu, maybe, apocope, mini, arrhythmia, folio, stereo and 197 more...
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Manji's Random Wordlist
The title says it all
velour, vivacity, subterfuge, sable, divination, gentry, vindication, compendium, pistons, metamorphosis, methodology, polyphony and 91 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (C)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
cacophony, cad, cajole, calamity, camomile, camphor, candlemas, candy apple, canopy, canticle, caparison, caravan and 304 more...
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heart of darkness
yawl, sea-reach, offing, barge, sprit, estuary, yarn, aft, mizzenmast, placid, gauzy, diaphanous and 141 more...
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Words of Whimsy & Grace
abecedary, addendum, ampersand, anachronism, avuncular, balderdash, barnacle, befuddle, behemoth, bejeebers, blabbermouth, blatherskite and 465 more...
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1906 Railway Cipher Code
Terms from the Standard Cipher Code of the American Railway Association, 1906. The terms were shorthand for common phrases used in telegraphic communications between station agents and Railway Asso...
abetting, abdominal, abiology, ablative, abnormal, abominate, aboveboard, abrasive, absinth, abstinent, accursed, acetate and 212 more...
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roseandivy's list
mooncalf, wonted, gibbet, artless, noontide, blithe, glitterati, vorpal, soporific, moxie, pilfer, betwixt and between and 263 more...
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Collage's Words
subtle, calamity, impale, qat, painterly, piebald, surly, nihilistic, repine, slake, larder, sepulchre and 349 more...
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The Amulet of Samarkand
Words and phrases from Jonathan Stroud's The Amulet of Samarkand.
flunky, provenance, pare, rabbit in a covert, short shrift, bunker, trainers, tatty, lob, injunction, doss, bluster and 193 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, C
cryptoxanthin, convent, calcar, chuckle, campanile, covet, complexion, campestral, chirography, counterscarp, caliginous, catabolism and 722 more...
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The Decemberists
The Decemberists tend to use a lot of interesting words in their songs.
parapet, wastrel, mescaline, indolent, balustrade, vagabond, sprightly, grapple, gunwale, odalisque, timberline, moribund and 116 more...
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Words of the Dying Earth
Tales of the Dying Earth is a 2002 anthology volume featuring four novels by Jack Vance: The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga and Rhialto the Marvellous.
Throughou...deodar, deodand, pelgrane, leucomorph, blister-bush, russet, black burdock, gunmetal, spatterlight, carrack, concertina, terce and 280 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for concertina.
hernesheir US Railway Association, Standard Cipher Code, 1906: The term concertina stood for the phrase "There is no competition" in the language of railroad telegraphers. Jan 21, 2013