keyboard

Pluralkeyboards

Formskeyboards, keyboarding, keyboarded

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A set of keys arranged in a grid-like pattern, used for typing on a typewriter, computer, or similar device.

   The mechanical keyboard clicked loudly with every keystroke.

   Most laptops include a built-in keyboard below the screen.

   Note

   A plain compound of key and board. The same pairing also names the piano's row of keys, so context, not form, separates a typist's keyboard from a pianist's. In computing it is the standard input surface, whether built into a laptop or connected separately. Speakers usually specify the build with an adjective such as mechanical or built-in.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   On a piano, organ, harpsichord, or many other instruments, the set of keys, usually black and white, that each sound a different note when played.

   The organist's hands moved across the keyboard with practiced ease.

   Dust had settled between the keys of the old harpsichord keyboard.

   Similarmanual

   Note

   Here the word names the whole playing surface rather than any single key. That is why the piano, organ and harpsichord, which sound so different, can all be grouped as keyboard instruments. The black-and-white pattern is usual rather than required. Players speak of hands moving across the keyboard, and of the keyboard part in a piece of music.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An electronic musical instrument with a set of keys that produce sounds when the keys are pressed.

   Like a piano crossed with a computer: the same row of keys, but able to mimic an entire orchestra.

   The band's keyboard added rich textures beneath the vocals.

   Modern keyboards can imitate strings, brass, and full drum kits.

   Similarsynthesizer

   Note

   This is the everyday short form of electronic keyboard. Once the instrument carried its own sound-making circuitry, the name of its key array came to stand for the whole device. Synthesizer overlaps with it: keyboard points to what the player touches, synthesizer to what makes the sound. Unlike the piano's set of keys, it is a complete instrument, not a part of one.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To enter text by typing on a computer keyboard.

   Clerks keyboard all day, so good posture matters.

   He keyboarded for hours until his wrists began to ache.

   Similartype

   Note

   A verb made straight from the noun. It appears most naturally as the gerund keyboarding, as in Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2 (1995), where hackers stumble in to their "predawn keyboarding." It takes no object: people keyboard for hours rather than keyboard a report. It names the physical work at the keys, so it suits talk of jobs, posture and long sessions.

Showing meanings only. Show all 4