Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A small harmonium.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A reed-organ or harmonium.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Mus.) A kind of small reed organ; -- a portable form of the seraphine.
- noun A music hall.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun historical, US A
music hall . - noun historical, music A type of reed organ with a single keyboard.
- noun music An
accordion where the melody-sidekeyboard is limited to the notes ofdiatonic scales in a small number of keys.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The scene to be represented is a parlor furnished with sofa, chairs, carpet, pictures, table, and a melodeon, which is placed on the side of the stage.
Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants James H. Head
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Dancing was tabooed, but a "melodeon" was carted to the dock and hymns were sung.
The Kirk on Rutgers Farm Frederick Br��ckbauer
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Presently the profound stillness was broken by the harmonium -- "melodeon" is, I believe, the precise name of the instrument -- softly sounding a bar of music.
Faces and Places 1884
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For their second set, they were in novelty mode, tackling Abba, Madness, a-ha and the Carpenters with impressive crooning from Paul Sartin on Close to You, and they ended with melodeon-backed dance tunes, with furious vocals and fiddle-work from Jon Boden on New York Girls.
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The single fellows had no such doubts (much); beneath me a bunch in slouch hats and jeans were passing the jug around boisterously, and one with a melodeon was striking up:
Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010
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Except for the fiddle at a dance or a melodeon at home, frontier music, in its cultural aspects, was largely confined to amateur bands with plenty of oompah.
THE AMERICAN WEST DEE BROWN 2007
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Ben Ivitsky (viola and guitar), John Boden (fiddle and double bass), and John Spiers (melodeon) complement Carthy's vocals and fiddle perfectly, and the result is Carthy's strongest solo record to date.
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Ben Ivitsky (viola and guitar), John Boden (fiddle and double bass), and John Spiers (melodeon) complement Carthy's vocals and fiddle perfectly, and the result is Carthy's strongest solo record to date.
Archive 2006-03-01 digitaldoc 2006
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He evoked the high pulpit with the red plush pillow for the Bible, the stiff pews, the black contribution purses attached to long poles, “the wheezy melodeon in the gallery-front” and the “old maid behind it in severe simplicity of dress,” the choir that raved and roared around its “victim” the hymn, “& pulled & hauled & flayed it.”
Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005
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He later entertainingly disgorged his visual and aural memories of it all—the high pulpit with the red plush pillow for the Bible, the stiff wooden pews, the “melodeon,” or primitive organ; the caterwauling choir, the dozing oldsters, and his scattered fellow captives, the other boys, their spitballs at the ready, grateful for the diversion of a dog sitting down on the stinging warhead of a pinch bug—and getting up again.
Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005
knitandpurl commented on the word melodeon
"The living room was full of things: tables, and lots of chairs, all with crocheted antimacassars; pictures and pennants and fans on the wall; a big melodeon at one end of the room with very old sheet music on it; and in the wide doorway there were portieres all made of beads which rattled like rain on a tin roof when Mrs. Wheelwright brushed against them."
The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright, p 56 of the 2002 hardcover edition
July 6, 2011