Word.ws English Dictionary

accelerando

/ætʃɛləˈɹændəʊ/US/ɑˌkʃɛl.əˈɹɑn.doʊ/

accelerando noun: a tempo mark directing that a passage is to be played at an increasing speed.

Noun

accelerando (plural accelerandos or accelerandoes)

  1. A tempo mark directing that a passage is to be played at an increasing speed.
  2. A passage having this mark.
  3. (broadly) Accelerating or exponential advancement or development (of a thing).
    • The accelerando of the sciences and of technology, their mathematization have beggared both the reach and the veracity of natural language.2012, George Steiner, The Poetry of Thought, p. 195

Adverb

accelerando (not comparable)

  1. With a gradual increase in speed.

Forms of accelerando

pluralaccelerandos
pluralaccelerandoes

Origin of accelerando

Borrowed from Italian accelerando, from Latin accelero.

Questions about accelerando

What does accelerando mean?
Accelerando means a tempo mark directing that a passage is to be played at an increasing speed.
What part of speech is accelerando?
Accelerando can be a noun or an adverb.
How do you pronounce accelerando?
Accelerando is pronounced /ɑˌkʃɛl.əˈɹɑn.doʊ/ (US).
What is the plural of accelerando?
The plural of accelerando is accelerandos.

Words near accelerando in the dictionary

  1. acceeding
  2. acceeds
  3. accel
  4. accel.
  5. accelerable
  6. accelerando
  7. accelerandoes
  8. accelerandos
  9. accelerans
  10. accelerant
  11. accelerants

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: accelerando (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-accelerando.wav.

Cite this entry: “accelerando.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/accelerando. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.