Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An organlike keyboard instrument that produces tones with free metal reeds actuated by air forced from a bellows.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One of the forms of the reed-organ (which see). The essential difference between the harmonium and the so called American organ lies in the fact that in the former the air is compressed by the bellows and thence driven out through the reeds, while in the latter the bellows produce a vacuum into which the outside air is drawn through the reeds. Harmonium is the usual term in England and France for all reed-organs.
Wiktionary
- n. music A small keyboard instrument consisting of a series of reed pipes which sound when air is allowed to pass through them by means of a valve that opens when a key is depressed.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A musical instrument, resembling a small organ and especially designed for church music, in which the tones are produced by forcing air by means of a bellows so as to cause the vibration of free metallic reeds. It is now made with one or two keyboards, and has pedals and stops.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a free-reed instrument in which air is forced through the reeds by bellows
Etymologies
- French, from harmonie, harmony, from Old French armonie, harmonie; see harmony. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In later life when he had attained to wealth and prosperity the violin and the harmonium were a constant source of solace during long winter evenings in Greenwich and Peckham.”
“The harmonium on which Mr. Povey used occasionally to play was still behind the door; and on the harmonium was the tea-caddy of which”
“The chanting was in Sanskrit and Hindu, and besides the fact that the woman playing the harmonium was a regal blonde from California, we could have easily been in Varanasi.”
“One day I bought a "harmonium" kit at the street market in Bangalore.”
“Menacing clouds of reverberating discord give way to toy piano chimes synchronized with chirping melodica, booming bass drum, and mournfully wheezing harmonium, all oddly juxtaposed with Steinke's warm guitar melodies.”
“Often, I come home and figure the chords out later, and then with some other ones, I'll be sitting down messing with the guitar or the harmonium or something and start a melody.”
“Kris Davis, a pianist and composer who plays harmonium in the band, said she was attracted by the tightly structured spontaneity within the music.”
The Wall Street Journal: Finding a Rhythm in the Space Between Styles
“He structured his band to parallel a traditional Qawwali combo — with horns to mirror the voices, percussion, harmonium — and then added his own twist: bass and guitar.”
The Wall Street Journal: Finding a Rhythm in the Space Between Styles
“Built on a foundation of hand claps, tablas, harmonium riffs and urgent, husky harmonies, the Sufi devotional music of the Pakistani Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan 1948-97 was captivating, his high tenor swirling above the appealing rhythms.”
The Wall Street Journal: Finding a Rhythm in the Space Between Styles
“Krishna Das plays a harmonium and is accompanied by a tabla player and cymbals.”
The Huffington Post: Matteo Pistono: Practicing Loving Kindness In The Capital
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘harmonium’.
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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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Words I like
A list contrived for the sole purpose of storing words I like to include in my writing; words that inspire or carry power for me.
contrite, meadow, sward, ossary, calumny, moribund, necropolis, chthonic, murmur, erstwhile, chime, beryl and 63 more...
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Joe's list
Fissiparous Weekly Standard Nigeria a fissiparous country 3/2012
fissiparous, inchoate, punctilious, synecdoche, apocryphal, superadd, pedant, pedagogy, astigmatic, inter alia, aphoristically, eponymous and 131 more...
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caspermilktoast's Words
frenetic, farrago, fandango, ensemble, assay, emulsion, taut, winnow, ridonkulous, ginormous, frisson, idee fixe and 181 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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Under Milk Wood
moonless, night, starless, bible-black, cobblestreets, silent, hunched, courters-and-rabbits, invisible, limping, sloeblack, crowblack and 95 more...
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botello360's list
ruminate, steel, bifurcation, arrivederci, portage, tactile, ruminant, rift, anecdotage, diacritic, cud, hull and 399 more...
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Non-vital organs
concertina, pipe organ, calliope, harmonium, accordion, reed organ, melodicon, hydraulicon, euphoniad, orchestrion, barrel organ, wurlitzer and 31 more...
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Instruments
erhu, cittern, pandeiro, boomwhacker, xylophone, sistrum, maraca, oud, cumbus, domra, balalaika, harmonium and 10 more...
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The Sirens of Titan
Words gathered while reading The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut.
edwardian, rakehell, chrono-synclastic..., parvenu, chiton, dottle, ort, residua, narwhal, lulu, peyotl, peignoir and 49 more...
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Musical Instruments
Collect them all!
dulcimer, french horn, didgeridoo, zither, tympani, djembe, xylophone, vibraphone, singing bowl, bagpipes, banjo, guitar and 66 more...
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the musician
Started off as names of musical pieces and miscellaneous music terms, now broadened to dance and theatre. (May recategorize this to finer details.)
oratorio, berceuse, barcarolle, appoggiatura, acciaccatura, polonaise, mazurka, overture, canto, arabesque, sinfonia, sonata and 44 more...
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simple & useful11
solemnity, accursed, commandeer, harmonium, melodeon, harp on, goggle eyed, slavishly, unmasking, trawling, compendium, impermanence and 64 more...
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celestiana's Words
shimmer, celestial, harmonium, mist, slink, glisten, concertina, wraith, davenport
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Sundry
Comprising words that I find euphonic
advesperate, euphoria, erratic, dypnosophy, harmonium, sophomoric, velocity
Tweets
Looking for tweets for harmonium.
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