Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Music with two or more independent melodic parts sounded together.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The capability of being pronounced in various ways characterizing some written characters.
- n. In music, the act, process, art, or result of simultaneously combining two or more voice-parts so that they shall maintain their individuality and independent interest, and yet shall harmonize with each other; counterpoint. It is opposed to monody. monophony. and homophony, in which a single voice-part is raised into decided prominence, and to harmony (in one of its senses), in which the attention is centered upon the successive chords as such rather than upon the voice-parts that constitute them. See
counterpoint , 3.
Wiktionary
- n. music Musical texture consisting of several independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Multiplicity of sounds, as in the reverberations of an echo.
- n. Plurality of sounds and articulations expressed by the same vocal sign.
- n. (Mus.) Composition in mutually related, equally important parts which share the melody among them; contrapuntal composition; -- opposed to
homophony , in which the melody is given to one part only, the others filling out the harmony. See Counterpoint.
WordNet 3.0
- n. music arranged in parts for several voices or instruments
Etymologies
- From poly- + -phony. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The term polyphony is sometimes used synonomously with counterpoint, and sometimes to distinguish medeival multi-voice music from that of the Renaissance and Baroque. monophonic, or consisting of only one voice, which was usually a liturgical chant.”
“These lessons and the responsories have also been set in polyphony by innumerable musicians and composers; Palestrina, Victoria, and Charpentier are only three among the more outstanding composers who have written for this service.”
“The Ordinary of the Mass will be sung in polyphony a capella with the proper of the Mass Introduxit vos in Gregorian.”
Announcement from St. Colman's Society and Your Announcements
“Polyphonic music can also be called polyphony, counterpoint, or contrapuntal music.”
“Schubert was an ignoramus, even in music; he knew less about polyphony, which is the mother of harmony, which is the mother of music, than the average conservatory professor.”
“Besides these three sources measurably unprofessional and outside of music, or amateur, as we say now, there was the work of the professional musicians strictly so-called, who, from about 1100 in the old French school, commenced the development of what is now known as polyphony, which culminated in the hands of the Netherlanders, about 1580, Palestrina himself being one of the latest products of this school.”
A Popular History of the Art of Music From the Earliest Times Until the Present
“There's always a danger in all strong, erotic love that one may love what I might call the polyphony of life.”
“Rather than a cacophony, it makes of itself a kind of polyphony, an antiphonal richness, an enjoyment of life and the capacity to sing, every day a kind of celebration.”
“By means of a generous employment of free counterpoint, in other words a kind of polyphony in which the various voices use different melodies in harmonious combination, he gained a potent auxiliary in his cunning workmanship, and emphasized the folly of rejecting the contrapuntal experiences, of, for instance, a Sebastian Bach.”
“As for that streetwise post-minimalist Nico Muhly, he has a passion for English 17th-century polyphony which is clearly rubbing off on his own music.”
Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘polyphony’.
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phono-, phon-, -phony
relating to sound
phonograph, phonics, phonology, telephony, phoneme, phone, telephone, phonautograph, phonetic, phonebook, phonography, phonolite and 107 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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MUSIC - ALL TERMS
With focus on non-classical styles, but not excluding terms of the latter.
banjo, accompaniment, acoustic bass, bass guitar, bass clef, ground, brass, cornet, Mute, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, arrangement and 866 more...
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Music
musical terms
ritornello, tutti, rondo, polyphony, monody, monophony, homophony, leitmotif
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harmony of the spheres
tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, subtonic, leading tone, progression, sonata, concerto, allegro and 247 more...
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Manji's Random Wordlist
The title says it all
velour, vivacity, subterfuge, sable, divination, gentry, vindication, compendium, pistons, metamorphosis, methodology, polyphony and 91 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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the omnibus
preponderance, idioglossia, acumen, heteronym, flux, anacoluthon, metonymy, impetus, constellation, exegesis, revelatory, cloistered and 877 more...
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Typewriter words
Long English words that can be typed on a keyboard under various restictions. The longest are:
QWERTY left hand only: aftercataracts, sweaterdresses, tesseradecades, and tetrastearates...abracadabras, aftercataracts, aftereffects, barebreasted, decerebrated, desegregated, detractresses, extravagated, extravasated, reaggregated, resegregated, reverberated and 111 more...
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What Is the Sound of One Hand Typing?
Words you can type with one hand--if you learned how to type formally. Hunt-and-peck method doesn't count. ;-) I'm keeping it to five or more letters to avoid an excessively lengthy list.
<...racecar, start, create, desert, dessert, secret, secrete, sweet, tresses, poppy, puppy, homonym and 141 more...
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the name of the rose
pleasing words I encounter whilst reading umberto eco's novel of the same name.
matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, nones, vespers, compline, usurper, simoniac, heresiarch, malefactor and 230 more...
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Foucault's Pendulum
telluric, isochronal, Agarttha, obverse, panta rei, numinous, ogive, nave, sapiential, didactic, archon, chthonian and 48 more...
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College Encounters
College makes me learn new words. Sometimes. Or else look them up and promptly forget about them.
Studying art and social & political theory. So these words are generally related to on...coeval, hegemony, reify, atavism, reticent, imbricate, itinerant, quotidian, ontology, adjudicate, interpellate, alterity and 63 more...
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OrbitalCombustion's Words
nepenthe, phrontistery, peregrination, pervicacious, sinistrality, phallogocentric, prolixity, leptokurtic, ineffable, haecceity, lucubration, vicissitudes and 1026 more...
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Acadia Christian School
Words that make my students mad
epexegetical, assonance, paradigm, coda, hapax legomenon, anthropopathy, intrinsic, subjectification, justification, ecumenical, reprobate, consanguinity and 38 more...
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melodious, sexy words
as the title says
rhythm, harmony, sound, a cappella, accelerando, accent, crescendo, espressione, ostinato, timbre, improvisation, duet and 7 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for polyphony.
oroboros The longest common word using typewriter letters for the right hand. See also homophony.
--Chris Cole, Wordplay (See comment under "Wordplay List".) May 24, 2008