Etymology- Piano

Sitting in my living room is an old piano. It is one of my favorite pieces of furniture in our house. I dont play the piano, but my daughter is learning. I wondered where the name came form for one of the most popular instruments in the world. Was it name after its inventor? The name piano came about in 1803 in France. It was a shortened form of the 1767 word pianoforte and the word pianissimo from the 1680's.

Pianoforte was derived from piano e forte "soft and loud," and was so called by inventor B. Cristofori (1655-1731) of Padua because the ability via dampers to vary the tone is one of the main changes from the harpsichord.