In music, a glissando (plural: glissandi, abbreviated gliss.) is a from one pitch to another. It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French glisser, to glide. In some contexts it is distinguished from the portamento. Some colloquial equivalents are slide, sweep (referring to the 'discrete glissando' effects on guitar & harp respectively), bend, smear, rip (for a loud, violent gliss to the beginning of a note), lip (in jazz terminology, when executed by changing one's embouchure on a wind instrument), or falling hail (a glissando on a harp using the back of the fingernails).