Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In Greek and medieval music, the interval of a fifth.
  • noun In pharmacy, a composition of five ingredients; an old electuary consisting of the diatessaron with the addition of another medicine.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Anc. Mus.) The interval of the fifth.
  • noun (Med.) A composition of five ingredients.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun music, obsolete The interval of the fifth.
  • noun medicine, obsolete A composition of five ingredients.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin, from Ancient Greek διά (dia, "through, across") + πέντε (pente, "five").

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Examples

  • For just as those trained in the canons of the lyre declare the sesquialter proportion produces the symphony diapente, the double proportion the diapason, the sesquiterte the diatessaron, the slowest of all, so the specialists in Bacchic harmonies have detected three accords between wine and water — Diapente,

    Symposiacs 2004

  • For just as those trained in the canons of the lyre declare the sesquialter proportion produces the symphony diapente, the double proportion the diapason, the sesquiterte the diatessaron, the slowest of all, so the specialists in Bacchic harmonies have detected three accords between wine and water — Diapente,

    Essays and Miscellanies 2004

  • Of these numerical relationships the easiest for the layman to grasp were the Pythagorean intervals of diatesseron (fourth), diapente (fifth), and diapason

    Dictionary of the History of Ideas GRETCHEN LUDKE FINNEY 1968

  • An octave or diapason was represented by the numerical ratio 1: 2, the fifth (diapente) by 2: 3, the fourth (diatesseron) by

    Dictionary of the History of Ideas GRETCHEN LUDKE FINNEY 1968

  • Bodin (p. 455), “which chaunceth when ... you depart farthest from those concords which the Musitions call diatesseron and diapente.”

    Dictionary of the History of Ideas GRETCHEN LUDKE FINNEY 1968

  • It was then tried with speaking: the result was the same: a powerful and perpetual hum, not resonant peculiarly to the diatessaron, the diapente, or the diapason, but making a new variety of continuous fundamental bass.

    Gryll Grange Thomas Love Peacock 1825

  • This order also keeps the analogy of the symphonies, i.e. the proportion of the irascible to the rational (which is placed as hypate) making the diatessaron (or fourth), that of the irascible to the concupiscent (or nete) making the diapente (or fifth), and that of the rational to the concupiscent (as hypate to nete) making an octave or diapason.

    Essays and Miscellanies 2004

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