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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
accordion
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
piano accordion
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
piano
▪ Noel Bridgeman's piano accordion takes over where Dooley Wilson's piano left off, and adds just the right ingredient.
▪ I've been playing the piano and the piano accordion for about 60 years.
▪ Normally a mouth organ or a piano accordion accompanies the music and plays the melody.
■ VERB
play
▪ At one point Arnin got up and played the accordion with the band.
▪ The older man plays an accordion, and the younger one plays a tin whistle in the musical interlude.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A man standing under the trees a little way off had produced an accordion and begun to play.
▪ Except, of course, their love for the accordion.
▪ From Arty's room came the sound of an accordion.
▪ He was carrying four thick brown cardboard accordion folios tied with faded red ribbons.
▪ The older man plays an accordion, and the younger one plays a tin whistle in the musical interlude.
▪ The prototype antenna popped from its carrier like a jack-in-the-box, and its three 92-foot accordion struts inflated as planned.
▪ Water piped out from the accordion folds.
▪ With the lights dimmed, a solo accordion played a brief, preliminary waltz.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Accordion

Accordion \Ac*cor"di*on\, n. [See Accord.] (Mus.) A small, portable, keyed wind instrument, whose tones are generated by play of the wind upon free metallic reeds.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
accordion

1831, from German Akkordion, from Akkord "musical chord, concord of sounds, be in tune" (compare Italian accordare "to attune an instrument"); ultimately from same source as English accord (v.), with suffix on analogy of clarion, etc. Invented 1829 by piano-maker Cyrill Demian (1772-1847) of Vienna.

Wiktionary
accordion

n. A small, portable, keyed wind instrument, whose tones are generated by play of the wind from a squeezed bellows upon free metallic reeds. vb. (context transitive intransitive English) To fold up, in the manner of an accordion

WordNet
accordion

n. a portable box-shaped free-reed instrument; the reeds are made to vibrate by air from the bellows controlled by the player [syn: piano accordion, squeeze box]

accordion

adj. arranged in parallel folds; "plicate leaves" [syn: plicate]

Wikipedia
Accordion

Accordions (from 19th-century German Akkordeon, from Akkord—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type, colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. The concertina and bandoneón are related; the harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family.

The instrument is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing valves, called pallets, to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called reeds, that vibrate to produce sound inside the body. The performer normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the right-hand manual, and the accompaniment, consisting of bass and pre-set chord buttons, on the left-hand manual.

The accordion is widely spread across the world. In some countries (for example Brazil, Colombia and Mexico) it is used in popular music (for example Forró, Sertanejo and B-Pop in Brazil), whereas in other regions (such as Europe, North America and other countries in South America) it tends to be more used for dance-pop and folk music and as well as in regional and is often used in folk music in Europe, North America and South America. Nevertheless, in Europe and North America, some popular music acts also make use of the instrument. Additionally, the accordion is also used in cajun, zydeco, jazz music and in both solo and orchestra performances of classical music. The piano accordion is the official city instrument of San Francisco, California.

The oldest name for this group of instruments is harmonika, from the Greek harmonikos, meaning harmonic, musical. Today, native versions of the name accordion are more common. These names refer to the type of accordion patented by Cyrill Demian, which concerned "automatically coupled chords on the bass side".

Accordion (solitaire)

Accordion is a solitaire game using one deck of playing cards. The object is to compress the entire deck into one pile like an accordion.

Accordion (disambiguation)

Accordion may refer to:

  • Accordion, a musical instrument of the handheld bellows-driven free reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox
  • Accordion (solitaire), a solitaire card game
  • "Accordion," a song by Madvillain from their album Madvillainy
  • Accordion cut, a technique in butchery similar to butterflying
  • Accordion (GUI), a graphical user interface widget in which several sections of a document can be expanded or collapsed
  • Any object with features resembling an accordion or its bellows
Accordion (film)

Accordion'' (Russian:Garmon'') is a 1934 Soviet musical film directed by Igor Savchenko.

Accordion (GUI)

The graphical control element accordion is a vertically stacked list of items, such as labels or thumbnails. Each item can be "expanded" or "stretched" to reveal the content associated with that item. There can be zero expanded items, exactly one, or more than one item expanded at a time, depending on the configuration.

The term stems from the musical accordion in which sections of the bellows can be expanded by pulling outward.

A common example of an accordion is the Show/Hide operation of a box region, but extended to have multiple sections in a list.

An accordion is similar in purpose to a tabbed interface, a list of items where exactly one item is expanded into a panel (i.e. list items are shortcuts to access separate panels).

Usage examples of "accordion".

Lotario Thugut was in the habit of going there after the last shift at the telegraph office, and dawn often found him drinking Jamaican punch and playing the accordion with the crews of madmen from the Antillean schooners.

The air was fragrant with honeysuckle and frangipani, and the little coqui chirruped in time with accordion music wafting from a gypsy band playing outside the theater.

The band was already tuning up fiddles, accordion and drums and the people were dancing.

He did all a young lad should do--bought himself an accordion, a shirt with a starched front, a loud-colored necktie, overshoes, and a cane.

Or, I thought, before everything shuts at once, in a few hours, meaning spigots, accordions, piano lids, soloists, trios, quartets, pubs, sweet shops, and cinemas.

I spot the gate to the driveway I make a quick turn, and what happens but I run the car slapdab into a stone gatepost, and the car folds up like an accordion.

It was a fishing tackle case with trays that accordioned out when he opened it, making an impressive display: the trays in neat little stairsteps, all divided into partitions and each section filled and labeled.

The elevator that Suits and I took down, an ancient cage replete with an accordion grille that had to be yanked open by hand, creaked and wheezed and bounced ominously when it reached the fifth floor.

Someone was singing a Garth Brooks song in nasal Trukese accompanied by an accordion.

For the past hour, the radio had been turned to a Louisiana station playing plangent Cajun and Zydeco music - high, shrill voices and accordions and fiddles double-bowed.

The last three Abominations were against rocks, ears and accordion players.

The chairs were like bowls cut in half and mounted on splayed legs, the books resembled flattened accordions, the tables were of some grayish wood with a stony appearance and the candles looked like cylinders of Stilton cheese.

Under the bandshell the accordion player struggled with his instrument and slammed his boot on the boards in countertime and stepped back and the trumpet player came forward.

Power droids lumbered down a ramp, little more than boxlike batteries walking on two accordioned legs.

Christmas carols hi Spanish, they played guitars and an accordion, they wept and cavorted joyously some more, and finally, tearfully, emotionally, tragically, they all kissed his shrunken cheeks and bid him a fond and loving adios, told their mama Betita to be strong, and scattered to the three winds.