Concertina
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A musical instrument, like the various accordions, that is a member of the free-reed family of musical instruments, typically having buttons on both ends.
"That concertina was a wonder in its way. The handles that was on it first was wore out long ago, and he'd made new ones of braided rope yarn. And the bellows was patched in more places than a cranberry picker's overalls."
- 2 free-reed instrument played like an accordion by pushing its ends together to force air through the reeds wordnet
- 3 Something multiply folded like a concertina, such as a folded book, a bus door or a set of picture frames that are folded together.
- 4 coiled barbed wire used as an obstacle wordnet
- 5 Coiled barbed wire for use as an obstacle.
Show 1 more definition
- 6 A type of booklet label, consisting of up to 32 pages of booklet as an insert.
- 1 To become compressed into a shape reminiscent of a concertina.
"The car concertinaed into the wall."
- 2 collapse like a concertina wordnet
- 3 To be drawn closer and farther apart repeatedly, or up and down, as if situated on a working concertina's folds.
"This resulted in some fragmentation of the line as the boats in some cases closed to just 50 metres as they concertinaed in and out of sight of each other."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"That concertina was a wonder in its way. The handles that was on it first was wore out long ago, and he'd made new ones of braided rope yarn. And the bellows was patched in more places than a cranberry picker's overalls."
Etymology
From concert + -ina.
Related phrases
More for "concertina"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.