Words / G / General

glissando

noun/ɡlɪˈsandəʊ/

C2CEFR level
88/100Rarity: very rare
TechnicalRegister

A continuous slide upward or downward between two musical notes.

The harpist ran a shimmering glissando across the strings to open the piece.

Similar: slide, portamento

Origin: Italianised form of French glisser 'to slide'.

Topic: music technique in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More general words: music technique