harmonica
noun
Simple meaning
A musical wind instrument with a series of holes for the player to blow into, each hole producing a different note.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hahrmahnihkuhSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
hɑɹˈmɑnɪkə
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A musical wind instrument with a series of holes for the player to blow into, each hole producing a different note.
A musical instrument, consisting of a series of hemispherical glasses which, by touching the edges with the dampened finger, give forth the tones.
A toy instrument of strips of glass or metal hung on two tapes, and struck with hammers.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A musical wind instrument with a series of holes for the player to blow into, each hole producing a different note.
Used this way, harmonica is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Music/performance
- Arts writing
Nearby words
- mouth organ , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: musical wind instrument with a series of holes for the player to blow into
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.