pizzicato

American  

[pit-si-kah-toh, peet-tsee-kah-taw] / ˌpɪt sɪˈkɑ toʊ, ˌpit tsiˈkɑ tɔ /

adjective

1. played by plucking the strings with the finger instead of using the bow, as on a violin.

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noun

pizzicati plural

1. a note or passage so played.

pizzicato British  

/ ˌpɪtsɪˈkɑːtəʊ /

adjective

1. (in music for the violin family) to be plucked with the finger

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noun

1. the style or technique of playing a normally bowed stringed instrument in this manner

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• pizzicati
  plural

Etymology

Origin of pizzicato

1835–45; < Italian, past participle of pizzicare to pluck, pick, twang (a stringed instrument)

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pizzicato pizzicati

“Sinners,” which Warner Bros. landed in a competitive bidding war, announced itself in a teaser that was simply blood and pizzicato strings.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 1, 2025

At his signal, the strings went off on a pizzicato run, buoyed by harps and congas, before dissolving into a bass drum pulse beneath simmering horns.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2023

Violas slinked atop pizzicato bass punctuation as Noseda whipped up a whirlwind of violins.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 6, 2022

On a recent afternoon at David Geffen Hall, the New York Philharmonic’s violins began to play an ensemble pizzicato pattern underneath a turntable-scratch solo by the artist DJ Logic.

From New York Times ● Oct. 20, 2022

I fit on some strings that I have in mine pocket, but there is no bow and I can only play pizzicato.

From The Master's Violin by Reed, Myrtle

In the first movement, she lined up emphatic pizzicati with the accents that Aimard plucked out of the solo part.

From New York Times ● Nov. 3, 2023

Their phrases had their own music, but it harmonized with Montgomery’s score and its oscillating rhythms, accelerating pizzicati, scraps of Gershwinesque melody, folk song twang and insect drones.

From New York Times ● Jul. 11, 2021

“Chaos beckons,” Mr. Bartlett gently sings, but he’s belying the orderly intricacy of the music’s Minimalistic fabric of propulsive, gamelan-like bell tones, string-ensemble chords and pizzicati and wraithlike backing vocals, transparent yet rigorous.

From New York Times ● May 18, 2018

The alluring array of sounds included woodblocklike pizzicati by Ms. Derham and, in the second movement’s “Nocturno,” hollowed-out timbres and glassy harmonics.

From New York Times ● Jul. 21, 2014

Not that they are hard in a modern way: Bach knew nothing of harmonics, pizzicati, scales in octaves and tenths.

From Violin Mastery Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers by Martens, Frederick Herman