glissando

1. 1.

   a rapid series of ascending or descending notes on the musical scale

   Broadertune

   Narrowerswoop

1. 1.

   (musical direction) in the manner of a glissando (with a rapidly executed series of notes)

   “this should be played glissando, please”

   music

Other forms of glissando

plural

glissandi

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about glissando

What does glissando mean?

glissando means "a rapid series of ascending or descending notes on the musical scale". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in glissando?

glissando has 3 syllables: glis-san-do. The stress falls on "glis".

Is glissando a common word?

glissando is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.