Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or characterized by percussion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to percussion or a light sharp stroke; striking; striking against something.
  • noun Specifically, in music, an instrument of percussion.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Striking against; percutient.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective characterized by percussion; caused by or related to the action of striking or pounding something

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective involving percussion or featuring percussive instruments

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The place was packed and noisy, with chopsticks clicking against plates in percussive counterpoint to the boisterous conversations.

    Denise Hamilton discusses Sugar Skull 2010

  • Friday’s artist is also interested in percussive string instruments but favors the harp over the piano.

    Archive 2007-11-01 2007

  • Friday’s artist is also interested in percussive string instruments but favors the harp over the piano.

    Sawdust and Diamonds 2007

  • The whip-like, in-a-trance polyrhythm of "Snakecharming the Masses" recalls the percussive sounds they heard during their musical journeys in Istanbul.

    Dose.ca Celeb News 2009

  • This multimedia journey across Planet Hip-Hop is described as a percussive call-and-response with turntablist DJ Excess and multi-instrumentalist Ajayi Jackson, accompanied by video by Eli Jacobs Fantauzzi.

    LAist 2009

  • I want to see what shadows are cast by a Calder mobile dangling from an ear, or to hear what kind of percussive music it creates.

    Body Sculpture Crafted by Calder 2009

  • It helped me to develop this kind of percussive - intricate, percussive style.

    Marcus Miller Performs Live in NPR's Studio 4A 2008

  • The more acceleration, the more transient noise and therefore the more "percussive" is the resulting sound.

    'Playing the Piano' Ryser, Marc 1999

  • The greatest thing about this picture, adapted from a novel by "William Irish" (a pen name for Cornell Woolrich) is its completely invented reality which, while certainly informed by German Expressionism, spins off into a realm of horrific hilarity, as in the picture's legendary "jazz drummer" sequence, wherein Raines, dolled up and playing hep-kitten, eggs on hopped-up Elisha Cook Jr. (who has information that could exonerate Raines 'boss) to a kind of percussive orgasm.

    In The Company Of Glenn 2009

  • The greatest thing about this picture, adapted from a novel by "William Irish" (a pen name for Cornell Woolrich) is its completely invented reality which, while certainly informed by German Expressionism, spins off into a realm of horrific hilarity, as in the picture's legendary "jazz drummer" sequence, wherein Raines, dolled up and playing hep-kitten, eggs on hopped-up Elisha Cook Jr. (who has information that could exonerate Raines 'boss) to a kind of percussive orgasm.

    In The Company Of Glenn 2009

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