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staccato

adjective/stəˈkɑːtəʊ/

C1CEFR level
60/100Rarity: rare
TechnicalRegister

Made up of short, sharp, detached sounds or notes.

He answered in staccato bursts, each word clipped short by anger.

Similar: clipped, abrupt

Origin: From Italian staccato 'detached', from staccare 'to detach'.

Topic: detached sound 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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