| X | abbreviation of 'Christ', symbol for error, symbol for a kiss (in letters), symbol for any unknown quantity, Roman numberal for the number 10 |
| x | abbreviation of 'cross' as in 'X-cut' meaning 'cross-cut' |
| (German) umpteen | |
| Xabo | see jabo |
| Xácara | see jácara |
| Xaenorphica | a bow stringed instrument with a keyboard, invented in 1801 by C. L. Röllig of Vienna. The strings were set in vibration by violin bows of which there were as many as strings |
| Xafoon | xaphoon |
| Xalam | (Senegal, Wolof, pronounced 'halam') local name for the ngoni, or Wolof lute, which has three to five strings. It is called continko by the Malinke. In Guinea, there is a twelve-string xalam |
| Xaleo | see jaleo |
| Xanaduism | academic research that focuses on the sources behind imaginative works of literature and fantasy. More recently, the term has been used in a pejorative sense to describe scholarship involving dubious scrutiny of amorphous, difficult-to-prove sources, especially simplistic studies lacking any redeeming theoretical perspectives |
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| Xango | from the Macumba ritual in Brazil, a dance in honor of the jungle god Xango |
| Xänorphica | (German f.) xaenorphica |
| Xaphoon | (English, German n.) the Maui Xaphoon (pronounced za foon) is a bamboo saxophone invented by Brian Wittman with a sound that falls somewhere between a saxophone and a clarinet |
| X-Beine | (German n. pl.) knock-knees |
| x-beinig | (German) knock-kneed |
| x-beleibig | (German) amy |
| xbre | abbreviation of décembre (French: December) |
| xcpt | abbreviation of 'except' |
| XDR | abbreviation of 'extended dynamic range' (of cassettes) |
| Xel-xuur | Mongolian Jew's harp |
| Xenharmonic | simple system using a collection of tones that does not sound like 12-tone equal temperament |
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| Xenia | the Greek term for the 'Laws of Hospitality'. The custom in classical Greece and other ancient cultures that, if a traveler comes to a strange town, he can ask for food, shelter, and gifts to help him on his journey |
| Xenofobia | (Spanish f.) xenophobia |
| Xenophanes | the wandering Ionian poet of classical Greece circa 550 BC |
| Xenophanic | this adjective refers to itinerant poets who make use of satire and witticism |
| Xénophobe | (French m./f.) xenophobe (someone who fears foreigners) |
| xénophobe | (French) xenophobic |
| Xénophobie | (French f.) xenophobia |
| Xer. | abbreviation of 'Xerox' |
| Xer-Dhaanto | an innovative, urban form of Somali folk dance and song |
| Xeremia (s.), Xeremies (pl.) | (Balearic Islands, Spain) Mallorcan bagpipe |
| Xeres | (Italian m.) sherry |
| Xérès | (French m.) sherry |
| Xerocopia | (German f.) xerox |
| Xerography | see 'electrostatic printing' |
| Xesyrtos | a Thracian circle dance for men |
| xfer | abbreviation of 'transfer' |
| X-height | indicating typesize of lower-case letters excluding ascenders and decenders (from the height of the lower-case x) |
| Xhile | Kosovar Albanian small metallic cymbals |
| Xiantao | precursor of the sanxian, with a straight neck and a round-bodied resonator played horizontally |
| Xiao | also called dongxiao, an end-blown flute of China, usually made of bamboo, with five sound holes on the front side and one hole at the back. Besides these, there are sometimes other holes designed to adjust the tunes, smooth the tones, and raise the volume |
| Xiaocha | small Chinese small cymbals |
| Xiaoluo | Chinese gong |
| Xiao ruan | see ruan |
| Xihe dagu | (China) stories told by a performer who beats a drum at the same time, with 7 or 10 words to the line |
| dagu and gushu are terms that denote the same category of qu under the heading of quyi. They consist chiefly of jingyun dagu, xihe dagu and meihua dagu | |
| Xilofón | (Spanish m.) xylophone, xilofono (Italian m.), harmonica de bois (French m.), Xylophon (German n.), xylophone (French m.), xilófono (Spanish m.) |
| Xilófonista | (Spanish m./f.) player of the xylophone |
| Xilofono | (Italian m.) xylophone, Xylophon (German n.), harmonica de bois (French), xylophone (French m.), xilofón (Spanish m.), xilófono (Spanish m.) |
| Xilófono | (Spanish m.) xylophone, xilofono (Italian m.), harmonica de bois (French m.), Xylophon (German n.), xylophone (French m.), xilofón (Spanish m.) |
| Xilofono a tastiera | (Italian m.) keyed xylophone |
| Xilófono con teclado | (Spanish m.) keyed xylophone |
| Xylophon | (German n.) xylophone, xilofono (Italian m.), xylophone (French m.), harmonica de bois (French m.), xilofón (Spanish m.), xilófono (Spanish m.) |
| Xilomarimba | (Italian m.) xylomarimba |
| see pengling | |
| Xing'er | a pair of small Chinese hand bells |
| Xiqin | a family of instruments found around in areas around the Xilamulun River in northwest China. The rise of bowed string instruments in China may have begun around the mid-8th century, the date of the first records of lute-form instruments scraped with a bamboo strip rather than bowed with horsehair. The most prominent variety of this early instrument was the xiqin, an instrument associated with the northern Xi people, many of whom migrated to central northern China at this time. One form of xiqin is illustrated in Chen Yang's music enyclopedia completed in 1105. The lower end of a neck of bamboo is set into a squat tubular resonator, which is covered with a wooden soundboard. Attached to the frontal tuning pegs were two strings, which, according to Chen's description, were sounded by a bamboo slip. Chen noted that the xiqin was already popular among the Han Chinese as well as the Xi, and it appears to have become a fashionable entertainment instrument, subsequently introduced into Korea and Japan. The late-eleventh-century traveller and chronicler Shen Kuo wrote a poem describing the plaintive sounds of the mawei huqin (horsetail - barbarian string instrument) played by prisoners-of-war captured on a Chinese military expedition into Central Asia. Horsehair bows appear to have gradually replaced the bamboo slip |
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| Xique-xique | alternatively, chocalho, ganzá or caxixi, a traditional shaker from Brazil |
| Xirimita | traditional reed instrument made from wood, about 70 cm long. The cone shaped xirimita is usually found in the Alicante region. In many other parts of Spain it is known as a dulzaina |
| Xirula | a short 3-holed straight Basque flute |
| Xitende | a plucked, one-string musical bow from Mozambique with a gourd resonator |
| Xiulet | (Catalan) whistle |
| Xizambi | an African scaped musical bow |
| xlnt | abbreviation of 'excellent' |
| x-mal | (German) umpteen times |
| Xmas | abbreviation of 'Christmas' |
| xmit | abbreviation of 'transmit' |
| xmsn | abbreviation of 'transmission' |
| xmtr | abbreviation of 'transmitter' |
| Xochipilli | (literally 'Flower Prince') the Aztec god of flowers, maize, love, games, beauty, song and dance. He is the husband of Mayahuel and the twin brother of Xochiquetzal. He is also referred to as Macuilxochitl, which means "five flowers". Xochipilli is depicted with a stick of which the sharp tip penetrates a human heart |
| Xograph | the common name for a parallax panoramagram where a two dimensional image creates the illusion of three dimensions |
| Xoomi singing | see 'throat-singing' |
| Xote | the dance called forró is the most popular genre from Northeast Brazil. Various genres of music can be used to accompany the dance but, traditionally, all use only three instruments (accordion, zabumba and a metal triangle). The dance changes as one moves from the Northeast to the Southeast. For example, college forró is the most common style of middle-class students at colleges and universities in the Southeast, which has been influenced by other dances such as the salsa and samba-rock. The traditional music used to dance the forró was brought from the Northeast by Luiz Gonzaga, who transformed the baião into a more sophisticated rhythm. Later, |forró achieved popularity throughout Brazil, in the form of a slower genre known as xote, which is what has been influenced by pop-rock music to become more acceptable to the Brazilian youth of the Southeast, South and Centre-West |
| XP | symbol or monogram for 'Christ' or 'Christianity' |
| X-ray | that part of the electromagnetic spectrum whose radiation has somewhat greater frequencies and smaller wavelengths than those of ultraviolet radiation |
| x.ref. | abbreviation of 'cross reference' |
| Xtoles | Mayan warriors dance from Mexico |
| xtra | abbreviation of 'extra' |
| Xuan paper | or Shuen paper, is a kind of paper originating in ancient China used for writing and painting. Xuan paper is renowned for being soft and fine textured, suitable for conveying the artistic expression of both Chinese calligraphy and painting |
| Xuc | in the 1950s, it was declared, by decree, the 'national dance' of El Salvador |
| Xuin | see xun |
| Xun | or xuin, a Chinese vessel flute made out of clay and earth mix, shaped like a gourd with an opening on top for blowing |
| Xyl, Xyl. | abbreviation of Xylophon (German), 'xylophone', xylophone (French) |
| xyl | abbreviation of 'xylophone' |
| Xylofon | (German n., Swedish, Norwegian, Danish) xylophone [additional information by Lars Hellvig] |
| Xylography | the wood engraving method when used in conjunction with letterpress printing. Because these wood blocks could be surfaced rolled and were durable, it allowed them to be locked into the same forms used with type and printed together as letterpress. Eventually the wood blocks would be made even stronger by casting them into metal through electrography. This also allowed them to be stereotyped, and they became the first means of creating pictures that could be printed on a rotary press. The creation of wood engravings requires highly skilled artists and it was a slow and expensive technique sometimes taking weeks to produce. In order to get illustrations into newspapers in a timely manner, a team system was developed. Engraving blocks are only available in small pieces because they are cuts into the end grain and the hardness required is only available from particular small trees such as boxwood or pear (hardwoods). A number of these small blocks would be clamped together forming one large plate. The master artist would then make his drawing, the clamps would be removed, and each piece given to an individual engraver to work on. When this work was done all sections would then be reassembled, glued together, and the master artist would finish engraving the image where all the pieces met. Because they were open to the artist's interpretation, and sometimes based on another artist's field sketches, they often suffered when accompanying news stories for their lack of accuracy. Eventually a method of transferring photographs directly onto the wood's surface was developed, but by this time the process was already in decline due to cost and alternative methods |
| Xyloharmonica | (English, German f.) or Xyloharmonicon, a keyboard instrument invented in 1810 by J. A. Uthe. It was an improvement of the Xylosistron constructed by the same maker three years earlier |
| Xyloharmonicon | see Xyloharmonica |
| Xylomarimba | (English, German f., French f.) a light-weight percussion instrument combining the features of the xylophone and marimba |
| Xylomaromba | xylomarimba |
| Xylophon | (German n.) xylophone, xilofono (Italian m.), xylophone (French m.), harmonica de bois (French m.), xilofón (Spanish m.), xilófono (Spanish m.) |
| Xylophone | (English, French m.) Xylophon (German n.), xilofono (Italian m.), harmonica de bois (French m.), xilofón (Spanish m.), xilófono (Spanish m.) |
| (English, French m., from the Greek xylon, literally 'wood') a percussion instrument, the soprano member of the marimba family, originating from Eastern Europe, consisting of tuned wooden bars ordered horizontally as on a piano keyboard which are struck with small hard and soft headed mallets; some have tubular resonators below the bars; the standard xylophone has a range of three-and-a-half octaves (f to c'''') although commercial sizes can have as few as three and as many as five octaves. The xylophone sounds one octave higher than the written note | |
| Xylophone | see Strohfiedel |
| Xylophone à clavier | (French m.) keyed xylophone |
| Xylorganum | synonymous with xylophone |
| Xylorimba | xylomarimba |
| Xylosistron | an instrument invented by J. A. Uthe in 1807, in which sound is produced by the friction between wooden bars and rosined gloves |
