home keyn.
/ˈhəʊm kiː/, U.S. /ˈhoʊm ˈki/ 1. Music. The basic key in which a work is written; = tonic n. 2b.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > musical sound > pitch > system of sounds or intervals > [noun] > key > principal key of piece
home key1890
tonic1896
1890 C. L. Burnham Mistress of Beech Knoll xxxii. 413 Human beings are a good deal like suspended harmonies, craving to find the home key.
1933 Musical Times 74 418/2 With its reappearance, fortissimo, in the home key of F minor,..the final sprint is well commenced.
1959 D. Cooke Lang. Music v. 269 ‘They finally decide on E minor, which is, after all, the home key.’ It is obvious that a modern composer need not be concerned about ending in the ‘home key’, after the ‘progressive tonality of Mahler, Nielsen and others’.
1999 BBC Music Mag. Apr. 118/1 After a slow introduction, representing sunrise, we hear the first main theme on the flute in the home key, or tonic, D major.
2. Each of the keys on a typewriter or computer keyboard which are used as the starting positions for the fingers in touch-typing. Frequently in plural. Cf. home row n. at home n.1 and adj. Compounds 2.On a qwerty keyboard the home keys are A, S, D, and F for the left hand, and J, K, L, and ‘;’ for the right.
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society > communication > printing > typing > typewriter > [noun] > set of keys > specific keys
shift-key1893
backspace key1899
backspacer1901
home key1910
margin-release key1913
shift1919
backspace1944
1910 Proc. 64th Ann. Meeting N.Y. State Teachers Assoc. 467 In 1893 Dr. Woodford Dulany Anderson..found that typewriting by touch might be taught from the very beginning, and the method he then devised is the present, almost universal home key system.
1938 High School Jrnl. 21 25 A chart was drawn on the board and marked off showing the section to be used by each finger and also the home keys.
1947 K. Jaediker Tall, Dark & Dead viii. 117 All I know about touch-typing is that there are home keys and if you don't put your fingers on them, you go haywire.
2008 N.Y. Mag. 12 May 70/2 His overworked right-hand pinkie finger would start to sweat and twitch uncontrollably over its home-key.
3. Computing. Usually with capital initial. A key on a keyboard which is typically used to move to the top of a document being viewed, or to move the cursor to the beginning of a line of editable text. Cf. end key n. at end n. Additions.
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society > computing and information technology > hardware > peripherals > [noun] > keyboard > individual keys
space bar1887
function key1930
delete key1963
esc1963
Alt mode1964
carriage return1965
return1965
return key1965
enter1966
Alt key1968
home key1968
arrow key1969
tab1969
control1976
delete1977
control key1978
cursor key1979
Alt1981
delete button1981
escape key1982
hot key1983
1968 L. H. Berul in K. Samuelson Mechanized Information Storage, Retrieval & Dissemination 33 The keyboards of these display terminals usually have a variety of special control keys for quickly communicating often-used instructions, such as type, insert, send.. home key, shift, repeat.
1981 InfoWorld 26 Oct. 43/2 Several of the other keys are not placed where one would expect them, the home key being next to the space bar, for instance.
2007 Mac Life Mar. 60 The Home key is adjacent to the Delete key. We found ourselves at the start of many lines when trying to delete.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2011; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1890