melody
noun/ˈmɛl.ə.di/
Etymology From Middle English melodie, melodye, from Old French melodie, from Latin melodia, from Ancient Greek μελῳδίᾱ (melōidíā, “singing, chanting”), from μέλος (mélos, “musical phrase”) + ἀοιδή (aoidḗ, “song”), contracted form ᾠδή (ōidḗ).
1
A sequence of notes that makes up a musical phrase.
- Alyssa likes to sing melodies while playing the drums.
- There is a melody upon the Earth as though ten thousand streams all sang together for their homes that they had forsaken in the hills.1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], “The Sayings of Slid (whose Soul is by the Sea)”, in The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 15:
1 more example
- Slowly she turned round and faced towards a neat white bungalow, set some way back from the path behind a low hedge of golden privet. No light showed, but someone there was playing the piano. The strange elusiveness of the soft, insistent melody seemed to draw her forward.1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 1, in The Subtle Minotaur:
- Synonyms
- tune
- Derived terms
- cacody, caco-melody, cat's melody, C melody, countermelody, melodic, melodied, melodiograph, melodious, melodist, melodium, melodize, melodyhorn, melodyless, melodylike, micromelody, undermelody
- Coordinate terms
- harmony, rhythm, tone color