Fortissimo is a musical term that means ‘very loud.’ It tells musicians to play with a lot of volume and power.
From Italian “fortissimo,” the superlative of “forte” meaning “strong” or “loud,” from Latin “fortis” (strong). It entered English directly through music notation and performance.
On sheet music, fortissimo is written as ‘ff’—two little letters that can shake a concert hall. Music uses a whole family of Italian words like this, so even if you don’t speak Italian, you’re secretly reading it when you read music.
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