Attacca

Part of speech: adverb

Pronunciation: /əˈtɑːkə/

Definitions

1. A directive in music to proceed immediately to the next section without stopping
2. A term used in musical performance to indicate seamless continuation between movements or pieces
3. An instruction signaling musicians to begin the next part without any break

Etymology: Italian musicians wrote "attacca" in scores as a plain instruction: attack, meaning begin the next section without a pause. The Italian verb "attaccare" means "to attach" or "to fasten", and the musical sense grows from that idea of one thing being fixed onto the next. The word passed into English as a borrowing from Italian, where it is the imperative form of the verb, so the score is literally telling the player to "attach" the following movement to the one just finished. The verb itself has an interesting ancestry. It descends from Italian "staccare", "to detach", which is the opposite action, and that verb carries the Latin prefix "dis-", giving the sense of undoing a fastening. Italian built "attaccare" by adding the Latin "ad-" to the root, so one verb means to join and its near relative means to separate. Music uses the joining sense to mark the instant one section hands over to the next.