arpeggio

plural arpeggios · plural arpeggi

1. entertainmentThe notes of a chord played individually instead of simultaneously, usually moving from lowest to highest.

   He struck the opening chords of the passage; but this time Irene's voice was silent. Victor stopped in the middle of an arpeggio.

   1956, Delano Ames, chapter 14, in Crime out of Mind

present singular third person arpeggios · participle present arpeggioing · participle past arpeggioed · past arpeggioed

1. transitiveTo play (a chord) as an arpeggio; to play (a piece of music) with arpeggios.

   When his fingers touched the piano, he formed a D7 chord, arpeggioed it up the inversions, then started singing and playing the “Happy Birthday” song.

   1990, Marcel Montecino, Big Time, New York: William Morrow, Book 3, p. 197

   3 more examples

   1819, Abraham Rees (ed.), The Cyclopædia, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Volume 14, entry “Fingering on Keyed Instruments,” In practising quick passages, the fingers should be lifted up with a spring, and not allowed to hang on the keys, till wanted again, unless in arpeggioing chords, or in passages of expression.

   […] I could see a man with his head buried forward towards a key-board, and his body swaying from side to side amid the storm of huge arpeggioed harmonies that came crashing overhead and round.

   1872, Samuel Butler, chapter 4, in Erewhon […] , London: Trübner & Co., →OCLC, page 29

   […] having finished her piano-forte practice, touched her harp twice, and arpeggioed the Spanish Fandango on her guitar, Miss Betty read two paragraphs of “Gilbert” […]

   1902, Booth Tarkington, chapter 1, in The Two Vanrevels, New York: McClure, Phillips, page 11

   Synonyms: arpeggiate

2. intransitiveTo produce arpeggios; to produce sounds resembling arpeggios.

   The accordion player arpeggioed through a chord […]

   2012, Roshi Fernando, “At the Barn Dance”, in Homesick, New York: Vintage, page 166

   2 more examples

   Herr Schlitz seated himself on the piano chair, pushed it a little back, drew it a little forward to the original place, looked under the piano at the pedals, took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and hands, and after arpeggioing up and down the keyboard, swung into a waltz of Chopin’s […]

   1898, Edward Noyes Westcott, chapter 37, in David Harum, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 314

   The soaring sound [of the whistling] rippled and trilled and arpeggioed as the songs of wild birds do not;

   1909, O. Henry, “Whistling Dick’s Christmas Stocking”, in Roads of Destiny, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, page 357

3. ambitransitivefigurativelyTo move (the hand or fingers) against a surface as if playing arpeggios on a keyboard; to touch different points in succession along a surface.

   Her hand was still arpeggioing softly on his arm.

   1931, Kate O’Brien, Without My Cloak, London: Penguin, published 1987, Book 2, Chapter 8, p. 187

   2 more examples

   the prickle of horripilation which arpeggioed my spine as I came barrelling down the hill from that ghost house

   1966, Richard Lancaster, Piegan: A Look from Within at the Life, Times, and Legacy of an American Indian Tribe, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, page 168

   While we thanked him for having us and told him the car was packed, and so on, he arpeggioed his stumpy fingers across his scarlet blanket.

   2009, Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Hidden Roads, London: Quercus, page 136