piano

Forms

1.A percussive keyboard musical instrument, usually ranging over seven octaves, with white and black colored keys, played by pressing these keys, causing hammers to strike strings.
- The piano in his house takes up a lot of space.
- She has been taking lessons for many years and now plays piano very well.

1.Soft, quiet.
2.Gentle, soft, subdued.
- ‘Tradecraft, Chris,’ Enderby put in, who liked his bit of jargon, and Martindale, still piano, shot him a glance of admiration.

1.To become softer and less intense.
- A day pianoed, swelled acutest, pianoed.
- “You know, Mrs. Wrigglechops,” pianoed Miss Drucilla , even more meekly and mildly than before, "the ace is either one or eleven."
- His tone pianoed on intimacy.
2.To play the piano.
- We guitared and drummed and head banged and pianoed.
- Anyhow I pianoed to my own ear, and had no thought at that time for an audience.
- John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Arnold Weinstein, and others came to the house, taping their poems as I pianoed and zithered and drummed away.
3.To move (the fingers) up and down on, similar to the motions of a pianist playing the piano.
- Holly pianoed her fingers over her throat.
- The superintendent pianoed his fingers on the surface of a nearby desk.
- He just stared at her, leaned back in his chair and pianoed his fingers along the tablecloth.
4.To equip with a piano.
- Other buildings will also be erected and pianoed by the same architect.
- A tabernacle has been built, burnt, rebuilt, electric lighted, organed, pianoed, and frequently filled, all during the last two years.

Uncommon· #3872

Clipping of pianoforte, from Italian pianoforte, from piano (“soft”) + forte (“strong”).

So named because it could produce a wide range of varied volumes note-by-note, in contrast to older keyboard instruments, notably the harpsichord.

Doublet of llano, plain, and plane.