Find the word definition

Crossword clues for cadence

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
cadence
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ She could imitate perfectly the cadence of my mother's voice.
▪ the cadence and rhythm of poetry
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Above all, Plomer merely touches on the Elizabethan cadence and diction.
▪ At first he did not recognize the tune, and then he caught its cadences.
▪ Francie stopped playing in mid cadence.
▪ One imagines the cadences, the music and the language are unrivaled when spoken by the authors themselves.
▪ The famous metallic voice with its slight Midlands cadences exercised its familiar thrill.
▪ The Marines, rifles on shoulders, marched in, matching the cadence of a distant pile driver.
▪ We saturate babies in the cadences, sounds, rhythms, and purposes of spoken language.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cadence

Cadence \Ca"dence\, n. [OE. cadence, cadens, LL. cadentia a falling, fr. L. cadere to fall; cf. F. cadence, It. cadenza. See Chance.]

  1. The act or state of declining or sinking. [Obs.]

    Now was the sun in western cadence low.
    --Milton.

  2. A fall of the voice in reading or speaking, especially at the end of a sentence.

  3. A rhythmical modulation of the voice or of any sound; as, music of bells in cadence sweet.

    Blustering winds, which all night long Had roused the sea, now with hoarse cadence lull Seafaring men o'erwatched.
    --Milton.

    The accents . . . were in passion's tenderest cadence.
    --Sir W. Scott.

  4. Rhythmical flow of language, in prose or verse.

    Golden cadence of poesy.
    --Shak.

    If in any composition much attention was paid to the flow of the rhythm, it was said (at least in the 14th and 15th centuries) to be ``prosed in faire cadence.''
    --Dr. Guest.

  5. (Her.) See Cadency.

  6. (Man.) Harmony and proportion in motions, as of a well-managed horse.

  7. (Mil.) A uniform time and place in marching.

  8. (Mus.)

    1. The close or fall of a strain; the point of rest, commonly reached by the immediate succession of the tonic to the dominant chord.

    2. A cadenza, or closing embellishment; a pause before the end of a strain, which the performer may fill with a flight of fancy.

      Imperfect cadence. (Mus.) See under Imperfect.

Cadence

Cadence \Ca"dence\, v. t. To regulate by musical measure.

These parting numbers, cadenced by my grief.
--Philips.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
cadence

late 14c., "flow of rhythm in verse or music," from Middle French cadence, from Old Italian cadenza "conclusion of a movement in music," literally "a falling," from Vulgar Latin *cadentia, from neuter Latin cadens, present participle of cadere "to fall" (see case (n.1)). In 16c., sometimes used literally for "an act of falling." A doublet of chance (n.).

Wiktionary
cadence

n. (given name female from=English) from the word cadence, taken to use in the 2000s.

WordNet
cadence
  1. n. (prosody) the accent in a metrical foot of verse [syn: meter, metre, measure, beat]

  2. the close of a musical section

  3. a recurrent rhythmical series [syn: cadency]

Wikipedia
Cadence

Cadence may refer to:

  • Intonation (linguistics), the variation of pitch in speech.
  • Speech tempo, the rate or speed at which a language is spoken
Cadence (music)

In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin cadentia, "a falling") is "a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of resolution [finality or pause]." A harmonic cadence is a progression of (at least) two chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music. A rhythmic cadence is a characteristic rhythmic pattern that indicates the end of a phrase. A cadence is labeled more or less "weak" or "strong" depending on its sense of finality. While cadences are usually classified by specific chord or melodic progressions, the use of such progressions does not necessarily constitute a cadence—there must be a sense of closure, as at the end of a phrase. Harmonic rhythm plays an important part in determining where a cadence occurs.

Cadences are strong indicators of the tonic or central pitch of a passage or piece. Edward Lowinsky proposed that the cadence was the "cradle of tonality."

Cadence (film)

Cadence is a 1990 film directed by (and starring) Martin Sheen, in which Charlie Sheen plays an inmate in a United States Army military prison in West Germany during the 1960s. Sheen plays alongside his father Martin Sheen and brother Ramon Estevez. The film is based on a novel by Gordon Weaver.

Cadence (given name)

Cadence is a female given name derived from an English word meaning "rhythm, flow." It has risen in popularity in the United States, where it ranked at No. 214 in popularity for baby girls in 2006, having jumped 745 places up the chart since 2002, when it was ranked at No. 959. It peaked in 2007, when it reached No. 199.

Cadence (poetry)

In poetry, cadence describes the fall in pitch of the intonation of the voice, and its modulated inflection with the rise and fall of its sound.

Cadence (vocal group)

Cadence is an a cappella vocal quartet formed in 1998 and based in Toronto, Canada.

Winners of the 2006 Juno Award for Best Vocal Jazz Album of the Year for their album "Twenty for One", they have produced four albums and a number of singles.

Current members include Ross Lynde, tenor, Kurt Sampson, bass and vocal percussion, David Lane, baritone and vocal percussion, and Lucas Marchand, tenor. Founding member Carl Berger is the group's manager.

In 2016, Cadence maintains a busy concert tour schedule with dates in Canada, the US, and Europe. Cadence is also active in music education, attending school functions and hosting a popular summer camp for a cappella musicians.

Cadence (cycling)

In cycling, cadence (or pedalling rate) is the number of revolutions of the crank per minute; roughly speaking, this is the rate at which a cyclist is pedalling/turning the pedals. Cadence is related to wheel speed, but is a distinct measurement.

Cyclists typically have a cadence at which they feel most comfortable, and on bicycles with many gears it is possible to maintain a preferred cadence at a wide range of speeds. Recreational and utility cyclists typically cycle around 60–80 rpm. According to cadence measurement of 7 professional cyclists during 3 week races they cycle about 90 rpm during flat and long (~190 km) group stages and individual time trials of ∼50 km. During ∼15 km uphill cycling on high mountain passes they cycle about 70 rpm. Cyclists choose cadence to minimise muscular fatigue, and not metabolic demand, since oxygen consumption is lower at cadences 60-70 rpm. When cycling at 260 W, a pedal force was the lowest at 90 rpm, lower than at 60, 75, 105 or 120 rpm. It is primarily due to increase of inertia of the crank with increasing cadence.

Any particular cyclist has only a narrow range of preferred cadences, often smaller than the general ranges listed above. This in turn influences the number and range of gears which are appropriate for any particular cycling conditions.

Certain cyclocomputers are able to measure cadence, and relay the reading to the cyclist via a display, typically mounted on the bicycle's handlebars.

Cadence (gait)

Cadence in sports involving running is the total number of 'revolutions per minute' ( RPM), or number of full cycles taken within a minute, by the pair of feet, and is used as a measure of athletic performance. It is very similar in respect to cadence in cycling, however it is often overlooked in its importance in the sports of running and racewalking. This discrepancy may be attributable to other factors of importance in running, including stride length, technique, and other elements pertaining to bio-mechanical efficiency.

Note that in other sports such as weight lifting or bodybuilding, 'Cadence' can refer to the speed, or time taken to complete a single lift, rather than how many repetitions of a lift are completed.

Usage examples of "cadence".

The slow, solemn enunciation of each word by a choir of hoary anchorets rolled in majestic cadence through the precipices of the mountains, and died away in the distant ravines in echoes of heavenly harmony.

While Robespierre deliberately worked alone, cultivating, Jean-Jacques-like, the austere isolation of the prophet, the Girondins played off each other like members of a string quartet, the cadence and tempo of their transcendent rhetoric rising and falling, swelling and fading with the effect they had on each other.

The cadential effect is generally produced by two or three chords, the last one of which is called the cadence-chord, and stands, when the cadence is perfectly regular, upon an accented beat of the final measure.

They walked to the measured cadence of the chant and to the drumbeat and the cymbal clash, toward steps that rose out of trailing weed and the encrusting shells of small things that live in shallows.

The stars some cadence use, Forthright the river flows, In order fall the dews, Love blows as the wind blows: Blows!

On the other hand, the copying of the manner of speaking, of accent, cadence, and ring of the voices of adults was surprising, although echolalia proper almost ceased or appeared again only from time to time.

Not only was there no other voice to be heard, but there was a certain evenness of flow and cadence, unquestioning and unhesitating, rather as though Occula might be telling a story or delivering a speech.

When subjects talk for their guides, rather than guides speaking for themselves through the subject, usually the cadence of speech is not as broken.

As Hayward listened, the tapping sped up, then slowed down, following its own secret cadence.

The voice slowly faded, while the melody passed through sublime downward ripples of semitones to a plagal cadence.

These enharmonic passages recur to satiety, and the abuse of the plagal cadence deprives it of its religious solemnity.

I would sooner snift thy farthing candle than sustain that nasal cadence ever more.

A baleful almost-music, that of the tuneless cadences of an untutored orchestra repercussing in an ecstatic agony of echoes against the sounding boards of the mountains, lured us into the village square where we discover them twanging, plucking and abusing with horsehair bows a wide variety of crude stringed instruments.

And so rare and moving were those airs and tales that one might guess their wonders from the faces of those who listened, even though the words came to common ears only as strange cadence and obscure melody.

Instead, he focuses on word choice and on the cadences of his sentences, two of his natural writerly gifts.