a. (adv., sb.) Mus. [It., pa. pple. of staccare, shortened form of distaccare: see DETACH v.] Detached, disconnected, i.e., with breaks between successive notes. Used adj. or advb. as a direction to a performer to render a passage in this style; also as sb., a succession of disconnected notes. Also transf. in all these uses.
1724. Explic. For. Wds. in Mus. Bks., Staccato, or Stoccato. See the word Spiccato.
1787. Beckford, Italy, etc. (1834), II. 40. The monotonous staccato of the guitar.
1806. L. Odell, Ess., 146. A certain staccato utterance of the emphatic syllables.
1844. Hood, More Hullah-baloo, 54. A van with iron bars to play staccato.
1877. Morley, Crit. Misc., Ser. II. 397. Turn to a page of Macaulay, and wince under … its unlovely staccato.
1883. Black, Shandon Bells, xxx. The staccato remarks about the probability of another … war,… developed into … abuse of the foreign policy.
b. Path. Staccato speech, utterance: see SCANNING ppl. a. 2.
1898. Syd. Soc. Lex., Staccato utterance. The same as Scanning utterance.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VII. 144. The staccato speech.
Hence Staccato, v. trans. To play (a piece of music) in a staccato manner; Staccatoed, ppl. a.
1814. J. T. Coleridge, in Ld. Coleridge, Story Devon. Ho., xvi. (1905), 231. It is always as if one should staccato a slow and pathetic air.
1818. Busby, Gram. Mus., 445. By the intervention of staccatoed notes or short rests.
1882. Annie Edwardes, A Ballroom Repentance, I. 147. The exclamation comes in staccatoed accents from Mrs. Dormer.
