||Ap*pog`gia*tu"ra (&?;), n. [It., fr. appogiarre to lean, to rest; ap- (L. ad) + poggiare to mount, ascend, poggio hill, fr. L. podium an elevated place.] (Mus.) A passing tone preceding an essential tone, and borrowing the time it occupies from that; a short auxiliary or grace note one degree above or below the principal note unless it be of the same harmony; -- generally indicated by a note of smaller size, as in the illustration above. It forms no essential part of the harmony.

• A melodically important musical ornament, sounded on the beat, preceding a main note (which it is one scale-step higher or lower than) and normally subtracting for itself half of the time value of that main note; written as a note of smaller size like the acciaccatura, but without the semi-oblique stroke.
       "The following Adagietto was like a long, melting appoggiatura composed of smaller dying falls and languid resolutions." — New York Times, March 2, 1992