bandoneon means A small Latin American accordion played with buttons which is frequently used in tango ensembles. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “bandoneon” is a great word
BANDONEON — [Noun] A small, square-ended button-accordion of German origin, adopted as the quintessential instrument of the Argentine tango for its melancholic and breath-like timbre. From Spanish bandoneón, from German Bandoneon, named after the 19th-century German instrument dealer and inventor Heinrich Band. Unlike the general term "concertina" (which describes a family of small free-reed instruments) or the more common "accordion" (which typically has a piano keyboard and a brighter, more robust sound), the bandoneon is a specific, mechanically complex variant whose very anatomy—its square shoulders, its 71 buttons, its particular bellowing technique—is inseparable from the music it defines. It is the sound of a late-night milonga, a sigh stretched across reeds, and the metallic rasp of a heartache given precise and rhythmic form—an immigrant machine that learned to speak the language of longing.
noun
- A small Latin American accordion played with buttons which is frequently used in tango ensembles.“a. 1989, Paul Honigsheim, “Governmental Control of Music in Hitler Germany”, in Paul Honigsheim (auth.), K. Peter Etzkorn (ed.), Sociologists and Music: An Introduction to the Study of Music and Society, Second Edition, Transaction Publishers (1989), →ISBN, page 203,
Another indication of these changes in musical practice was the emphasis given to instruments that had either been eliminated from s”