Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A musical instrument with a manual keyboard actuating hammers that strike wire strings, producing sounds that may be softened or sustained by means of pedals.
- adv. In a soft or quiet tone. Used chiefly as a direction.
- n. A passage to be played softly or quietly.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In music, soft; with little force or loudness: opposed to forte. Usually abbreviated p.
- n. A pianoforte.
- Softly; in a low tone or voice. Abbreviated p.
- n. A passage or series of notes sung or played softly; a soft or gentle tone.
- n. In Italian, a story; a floor; the French étage: in English, used only in such borrowed phrases as piano nobile, the principal story; pian' terreno, a ground floor.
Wiktionary
- n. A keyboard musical instrument, usually ranging over seven octaves, with white and black keys, played by pressing these keys, causing hammers to strike strings.
- adj. Soft. Used as a dynamic directive in sheet music in its abbreviated form, , to indicate lowering the volume of the music. In the pianoforte this is done by pressing the instrument's keys more lightly.
GNU Webster's 1913
- Soft; -- a direction to the performer to execute a certain passage softly, and with diminished volume of tone. (Abbrev. p.)
- n. A well-known musical instrument somewhat resembling the harpsichord, and consisting of a series of wires of graduated length, thickness, and tension, struck by hammers moved by keys.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. used chiefly as a direction or description in music
- n. (music) low loudness
- adv. used as a direction in music; to be played relatively softly
- n. a keyboard instrument that is played by depressing keys that cause hammers to strike tuned strings and produce sounds
Etymologies
- Italian, short for pianoforte; see pianoforte.Italian, from Late Latin plānus, smooth, graceful, from Latin, flat; see pelə-2 in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“With a fine piano or a violin, whether the effect is to be _piano_ or _fortissimo, _ the touch should be only with the amount of force needed to give a clear vibration, and the ease with which a fortissimo effect is thus produced is astonishing.”
“The computerised augmentation of the acoustic piano, the piano+, has developed from a combination of conventional and extended playing techniques, prepared piano and electronic real-time modifications of its sounds.”
“[5] The term piano trio is used to signify a piece for piano, violin, and 'cello, in full sonata form.”
“Just as a piano is about to fall on Ed, the scientists, the Gustav Brothers, interrupt the action to tell us all about gravity.”
Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1980s — An In-Depth Review » DVDs Worth Watching
“There's an argument to be made that the real descendant of the piano is the keyboard synthesizer, with its limitless timbral possibilities, and that the mechanical piano is just an atavism anyways.”
“I guess they only had the track and -- I don't know, I guess, what you call the piano or something.”
“Not everybody who paints or draws has to become a professional artist, and not everybody who plays the piano is aiming for international classical music stardom.”
“In 2D NMR, the chemical "piano" is hit with pulses of varying lengths and intervals.”
“Let’s say that I want to go down a discovery path about the term piano the instrument.”
“Piano lamp will be changed to red, indicates the piano is ready for use.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘piano’.
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®emovies
Movies or TV shows where the titles are also common words, generally one-word titles.
lost, alien, bug, elephant, siege, gladiator, flock, captivity, piano, roots, freaks, moonstruck and 269 more...
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Adverbia
A long list of adverbs, beginning with full-drive. Someone has to list them.
Read some sniping and some informative commentary about adverbs here.
Reesetee's list Conjunctive Adv...full-drive, portentously, unlawfully, legally, heterogeneously, consumingly, clancularly, inconsolably, prepositionally, retrogressively, symptomatically, decrepitly and 2243 more...
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One word book titles
More popular books often have shorter titles. Here is a list of one word book titles
blink, Freakonomics, roots, sugar, banjo, rising, cane, crave, emotions, love, until, dune and 118 more...
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O.o
Things that give you a warm fuzzy sort of feeling.
crumpet, cream puff, bubbles, packed lunch, prezzies, stars, pillow, rain, old books, sheep, bikkie, lollipop and 41 more...
tbtabby Spy lingo for a spy radio. The spy using it is called a pianist. Aug 26, 2009