octave

Plural: octaves

Noun

• A musical interval spanning eight diatonic degrees.
• a feast day and the seven days following it
• a musical interval of eight tones
• a rhythmic group of eight lines of verse
• An interval of twelve semitones spanning eight degrees of the diatonic scale, representing a doubling or halving in pitch frequency.
• The pitch an octave higher than a given pitch.
• A coupler on an organ which allows the organist to sound the note an octave above the note of the key pressed (cf sub-octave)
• A poetic stanza consisting of eight lines; usually used as one part of a sonnet.
• The eighth defensive position, with the sword hand held at waist height, and the tip of the sword out straight at knee level.
• The day that is one week after a feast day in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church.
• An eight-day period beginning on a feast day in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church.
• A small cask of wine, one eighth of a pipe.
• An octonion.
• Any of a number of coherent-noise functions of differing frequency that are added together to form Perlin noise.
• The subjective vibration of a planet.

Verb

• Alternative form of octavate.

Adj

• Consisting of eight; eight in number.

Examples

• Her play of OCTAVE brought a harmonious, high-scoring ending to the Scrabble round.
• The bass starts on a low E, and the tenor comes in on the octave.
• The melody jumps up an octave at the beginning, then later drops back down an octave.
• The octave has a pitch ratio of 2:1.
• The singer was known for astounding clarity over her entire five-octave range.

Synonyms

musical octave

Related Words

Octave in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911), fifth, fourth, interval, oct-, octave key, octavo, second, seventh, sixth, third, unison, OCTAVAL

Anagrams of octave