settings
War and Peace vocabulary
11 music terms, specific compositions and/or instruments
help & settings
[x]
-
staccato
-
tags: [music]
► definition
Definition:Disconnected; separated; distinct; -- a direction to perform the notes of a passage in a short, distinct, and pointed manner. It is opposed to legato, and often indicated by heavy accents written over or under the notes, or by dots when the performance is to be less distinct and emphatic.2. Expressed in a brief, pointed manner. Staccato and peremptory [literary criticism].Noah Webster. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)sound file: public domain
► uses
Uses:
Through the closed doors came the sounds of the discreet staccato accompaniment of the orchestra, and a single female voice rendering distinctly a musical phrase.
---
The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her fingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife.
Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray
---
and the shuffle and staccato of shoe soles and high heels going from pavement to metal to the soft thump thump on the carpeted train aisles.
Alice Sebold. The Lovely Bones, p.246 (2002)
---
Prince Andrew heard loud voices and a ringing staccato laugh— a laugh such as one hears on the stage.
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace: With bonus material from Give War and Peace A Chance by Andrew D. Kaufman . Simon & Schuster
---
He marched stiffly to show me how to make each finger dance up and down, staccato like an obedient little soldier.
Amy Tan. The Joy Luck Club, p.148 (1989)
---
All ambiguities and shades of meaning had been purged out of them. So far as it could be achieved, a Newspeak word of this class was simply a staccato sound expressing one clearly understood concept.
George Orwell. 1984 (1949)
---
The theatre shivered gently. ". . . there the action lies in his true nature," said the King loudly, not forgetting any of his business, moving his hands with tragic grace just as the director had instructed him, speaking slowly, trying to space his words between the staccato explosions of the guns.
Irwin Shaw. The Young Lions, p.361 (1948)
---
I too had stridden and debated, a student leader directing my voice at the highest beams and farthest rafters, ringing them, the accents staccato upon the ridgepole and echoing back with a tinkling,
Ralph Ellison. The Invisible Man (1952)
---
It’s all very well for me to think these things, quick as staccato, a jittering of the brain.
Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid's Tale (1986)
help with search