Staccato

//stəˈkɑːtoʊ// adj, adv, noun

adj, adv, noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An articulation marking directing that a note or passage of notes are to be played in an abruptly disconnected manner, with each note sounding for a very short duration, and a short break lasting until the sounding of the next note; as opposed to legato. Staccato is indicated by a dot directly above or below the notehead.
  2. 2
    A passage having this mark.
  3. 3
    Any sound resembling a musical staccato. figuratively

    "According to the syllable-timed hypothesis, Spanish syllables as staccato."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Describing a passage having this mark.
  2. 2
    Made up of abruptly disconnected parts or sounds.

    "The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her fingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife."

Adjective
  1. 1
    (music) marked by or composed of disconnected parts or sounds; cut short crisply wordnet
Adverb
  1. 1
    played in this style

    "Now, play the same passage very staccato."

Adverb
  1. 1
    separating the notes; in music wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
a cappellaabbandonoaccidentalaccrescendoadagiettoadagio

Antonyms

All antonyms
legato

Example

More examples

"It's the 26th of April of 2025. At Tim Hortons café, in the morning, whilst I was drinking my Classic Lemonade and eating a croissant, I met two young Kenyan men, who were lining up to the till. We talked about their language Swahili—Kiswahili. I said how its staccato beauty reminds me of Japanese! Then our conversation led to safari tours, rustic Zanzibar, and our voyages throughout the world."

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian staccato (“detached, disconnected”), past participle of staccare (“to detach, separate”), aphetic variant of distaccare (“to separate, detach”), from Middle French destacher (“to detach”), from Old French destachier (“to detach”), from des- + atachier (“to attach”), alteration of estachier (“to fasten with or to a stake, lay claim to”), from estache (“a stake”), from Low Frankish *stakkā (“stake”), from Proto-Germanic *stakkaz, *stakô (“stick, stake”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg- (“stick, stake”). Akin to Old High German stecko (“post”) (German Stecken (“stick”)), Old Saxon stekko (“stake”), Old Norse stakkr (“hay stack, heap”), Old English staca (“stake”). More at stake.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.