piano
part of speech
noun (piano, pianos); adverb and adjective in music (piano — softly)
meaning for a pupil
1) A piano is a big musical instrument with black and white keys. You press the keys and small hammers hit strings inside. tree →
2) In music, piano means play softly. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths: a word of the story; time practising piano, piano lessons and their cost; 88 keys. In music lessons: scales, notes, practising. In science: hammers hit strings that vibrate to make sound; longer strings make lower notes. In stories: a grand piano in a big hall.
examples
- She practises the piano 30 minutes a day. tree →
- Each piano lesson costs 20 dollars. tree →
- A piano has 88 keys. tree →
- How long did he play the piano this week? tree →
- She plays the piano in the school concert. tree →
- The piano has 52 white keys and 36 black keys. tree →
- Inside the piano, hammers hit the strings. tree →
- Moving a piano needs four strong people. tree →
- The teacher wrote «p» for piano, which means softly. tree →
- But when the old man played, the piano sounded quite out of tune. tree →
note
Usually lessons or practice time give rates. Hidden number: a piano has 88 keys (52 white, 36 black). Trap: «a day» × 7 for a week. Plural: pianos (not pianoes). A person who plays it is a pianist. «Practise» (verb) is the British spelling; American is «practice».
In the corpora
- "What has keys but can't open locks?" A piano: the riddle plays on two meanings of "keys".
- Piano keys are pressed gently, because banging them can damage the keys and the hammers inside.
- Example: a boy in Toronto learning the piano keeps stumbling on one hard bar.
- Liam's piano excuse went the same way.
- For musical instruments French says jouer de: je joue du piano, je joue de la guitare, je joue du violon.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «piano» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.