staccato

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   in music, marked by or composed of disconnected parts or sounds

   The song is marked by staccato beats.

2. 2
   noun

   Any sound resembling a musical staccato.

   According to the syllable-timed hypothesis, Spanish syllables as staccato.

3. 3
   adv

   played in this style

   Now, play the same passage very staccato.

4. 4
   adj

   Made up of abruptly disconnected parts or sounds.

   The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her fingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife.

5. 5
   adv

   separating the notes

6. 6
   noun

   An articulation marking directing that a note or passage of notes are to be played in an abruptly disconnected manner, with each note sounding for a very short duration, and a short break lasting until the sounding of the next note; as opposed to legato. Staccato is indicated by a dot directly above or below the notehead.

7. 7
   noun

   A passage having this mark.

8. 8
   adj

   Describing a passage having this mark.

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian staccato (“detached, disconnected”), past participle of staccare (“to detach, separate”), aphetic variant of distaccare (“to separate, detach”), from Middle French destacher (“to detach”), from Old French destachier (“to detach”), from des- + atachier (“to attach”), alteration of estachier (“to fasten with or to a stake, lay claim to”), from estache (“a stake”), from Low Frankish *stakkā (“stake”), from Proto-Germanic *stakkaz, *stakô (“stick, stake”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg- (“stick, stake”). Akin to Old High German stecko (“post”) (German Stecken (“stick”)), O…