The Collaborative International Dictionary
Polyphonic \Pol`y*phon"ic\, a. [Gr. ?; poly`s many + ? sound: cf. F. polyphone.]
Having a multiplicity of sounds.
Characterized by polyphony; as, Assyrian polyphonic characters.
(Mus.) Consisting of several tone series, or melodic parts, progressing simultaneously according to the laws of counterpoint; contrapuntal; as, a polyphonic composition; -- opposed to homophonic, or monodic.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1782, formed in English from Greek polyphonos (see polyphony).
Wiktionary
a. 1 of, or relating to polyphony 2 (context music English) having two or more independent but harmonic melodies; contrapuntal 3 (context of an electronic device English) able to play more than one musical note at the same time
WordNet
adj. having two or more phonetic values; "polyphonic letters such as `a'"
of or relating to or characterized by polyphony; "polyphonic traditions of the baroque" [syn: polyphonous]
having two or more independent but harmonically related melodic parts sounding together [syn: contrapuntal] [ant: monophonic]
Usage examples of "polyphonic".
It is written in monophonic rather than in polyphonic style, thus differing from the madrigal and glee.
Whatever the troubadours and minnesingers may have done toward establishing a metrical melodic form of monophonic character was soon obliterated by the swift popularity of part singing and the immense vogue of the secular songs of the polyphonic composers.
Why celebrate the artistic perfection of the monophonic novel when Dostoyevsky, an innovative and original genius, was constructing the polyphonic novel with its infinite possibilities?
Afternoon concert: gneisses, some augite, hornblende, slate, mica, Mozart, twittering eunuchs from the Kyrie to the chorale Dona nobis: polyphonic peeping -- but no sign of a teacher under a Bismarck hat.
Below him, in the great ballroom, an orchestra in black tie and white perukes was sawing away at something polyphonic.
Then, without a pianolike instrument, the whole idea of chords seemed almost foreign to the mostly polyphonic spell music of Erde.
Nadia kept her wristpad in contact with either Da Vinci or the Free Mars safe house in Burroughs, and as they slid on she watched both the car screen and her wrist, taking in simultaneous bursts of information as if listening to polyphonic music, finding she could track the two sources at once without any trouble, and was hungry for more.
They chanted the names, Arabic, Sanskrit, Inca, all the names for Mars, mixed together in a soup of syllables, creating a polyphonic music that was beautiful and shivery-strange, for the names for Mars came from times when words sounded odd, and names had power: he could hear that when he sang them.