Word.ws English Dictionary

glissando

glissando noun: either a continuous sliding from one pitch to another ("true" glissando), or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another ("effective" glissando).

Noun

glissando (countable and uncountable, plural glissandi or glissandos or glissandoes)

  1. Either a continuous sliding from one pitch to another ("true" glissando), or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another ("effective" glissando).
    • After another alternation of the two elements, there is a more playful episode, in which flute and bassoon take up the first element, with swooping glissando on the ondes Martenot.2018, Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover's Companion to Orchestral Music, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 465
  2. A method of playing an electric guitar in which a metal bar is held at right angles across the strings and rapidly moved up and down, creating a smooth, lush sound.

Verb

glissando (third-person singular simple present glissandos, present participle glissandoing, simple past and past participle glissandoed)

  1. To play with a glissando or sliding effect.

Forms of glissando

Noun
pluralglissandi
pluralglissandos
pluralglissandoes
Verb
third-person singular presentglissandos
present participleglissandoing
past participleglissandoed
pastglissandoed

Plural of glissando: glissandi or glissandos

Origin of glissando

Borrowed from Italian glissando.

Words formed from glissando

Questions about glissando

What does glissando mean?
Glissando means either a continuous sliding from one pitch to another ("true" glissando), or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another ("effective" glissando).
What part of speech is glissando?
Glissando can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of glissando?
The plural of glissando is glissandi.

Words near glissando in the dictionary

  1. glissader
  2. glissaders
  3. glissades
  4. glissading
  5. glissandi
  6. glissando
  7. glissando babbler
  8. glissandoed
  9. glissandoes
  10. glissandoing
  11. glissandos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: glissando (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.

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