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• piano
  piano

  noun

  a musical instrument in which felt-covered hammers, operated from a keyboard, strike the metal strings.
• Piano
  Piano

  noun

  Renzo. born 1937, Italian architect; buildings include the Pompidou Centre, Paris (1977; with Richard Rogers), the Potsdamer Platz redevelopment, Berlin (1998), and The Shard, London (2012)

piano

¹ American  

[pee-an-oh, pyan-oh] / piˈæn oʊ, ˈpyæn oʊ /

noun

pianos plural

1. a musical instrument in which felt-covered hammers, operated from a keyboard, strike the metal strings.

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piano ² American  

[pee-ah-noh, pyah-naw] / piˈɑ noʊ, ˈpyɑ nɔ /

adjective

1. soft; subdued.

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adverb

1. softly. p, p.

piano ¹ British  

/ pɪˈænəʊ /

noun

1. a musical stringed instrument resembling a harp set in a vertical or horizontal frame, played by depressing keys that cause hammers to strike the strings and produce audible vibrations See also grand piano upright piano

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Piano ² British  

/ pjˈɑno /

noun

1. Renzo. born 1937, Italian architect; buildings include the Pompidou Centre, Paris (1977; with Richard Rogers), the Potsdamer Platz redevelopment, Berlin (1998), and The Shard, London (2012)

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piano ³ British  

/ ˈpjɑːnəʊ /

adjective

1.  p.  music (to be performed) softly

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piano Cultural  

1. A musical direction meaning “to be performed softly”; the opposite of forte. As the name of a musical instrument, it is short for pianoforte.

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• pianos
  plural

Etymology

Origin of piano¹

First recorded in 1795–1805; short for pianoforte

Origin of piano²

1675–85; < Italian: soft, low (of sounds), plain, flat < Latin plānus plain ¹

Explanation

A piano is a large musical instrument that you play by pressing black and white keys on a keyboard. Most people play a piano with their fingers, but Jerry Lee Lewis played with his fingers, feet, elbows, and, ahem, backside. A piano makes a sound when each key moves a small hammer that strikes a metal string. The inside of a piano looks kind of like a harp. Pianos are vital in many kinds of music, from classical to pop, and in the case of Lewis, boogie-woogie. Piano comes from the original Italian name for the instrument: piano e forte, "soft and loud." Piano is also the musical notation that tells the player that something should be played quietly.

Example Sentences

Swift will also release acoustic and piano versions of the single, all three of which are now available to preorder on her website.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 1, 2026

For Daniel-Hoste, a classically trained pipe organist who plays in regional orchestras and teaches piano on the side, his expenditures hardly seemed exorbitant.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 29, 2026

Using a custom-built noncontact sensing system called HackKey, the team recorded the movements of all 88 piano keys at a speed of 1,000 frames per second and with microscopic spatial precision.

From Science Daily • May 28, 2026

McCartney's father Jim infused the house with music, bashing out self-taught tunes on an old piano.

From BBC • May 27, 2026

They take another series of photographs in the retiring room—me sitting at the piano, on the settee—and by the time those are finished I’ve nearly sweated through my pretend uniform.

From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse

Related Words

• grand piano
• instrument
• keyboard