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What is "tenor"

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tenor
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
tenor
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
general
▪ I am not against the general tenor of that which is sought.
▪ The general tenor of those reports is that while much has been achieved, a very great deal remains to be done.
▪ Macmillan himself noted that Britain could do little by herself, but was encouraged by the general tenor of Dulles's remarks.
▪ In many ways I sympathize with the general tenor of this complaint, as may quickly become apparent.
▪ The general tenor of the letters, the thread that ran through the vast majority soon became clear.
■ NOUN
sax
▪ I'd seen it too and it hadn't told me anything except that Moira was battered to death with a tenor sax.
▪ A few yards away lay a tenor sax, its gleaming golden horn smeared with blood.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ He used to sing tenor in the church choir.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Another big favourite was 75-year-old tenor Josef Locke.
▪ But the top of the range featured the solo tenor Francesco Tamagno.
▪ He was also a member of the royal chapel choir, where he was classified as a taille or tenor.
▪ Parts are notated for him in five different clefs bass, tenor, alto, mezzo-soprano and soprano.
▪ Primafacie, therefore, the transfer was, in my opinion, valid and effective according to its tenor.
▪ The tenor of this book has been pessimistic, but not, I hope, despairing.
▪ The tenor often keeps well distant from G minor, and the tonal conflicts created are full of stress.
II.adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
saxophone
▪ One of his initial inspirations was an Alan Skidmore tenor saxophone solo on a John Mayall album.
▪ A brass section blares on trumpet, tenor saxophone and bass sax.
▪ Clarinet, tenor saxophone. b. New Orleans. 3 March 1906; d. 27 June 1980.
▪ In his left hand he grips a glistening gold tenor saxophone with flames leaping from the bell.
saxophonist
▪ Then as now, the soprano and tenor saxophonist has thrived by constantly seeking new adventures and doing the unexpected.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A Parker tenor solo begins by skulking menacingly around the regular line of a blues solo before exploding into dissonant space.
▪ Octet featuring the limpid piano of Marc Laginha, Django Bates on tenor horn.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
tenor

high-pitched \high-pitched\ adj.

  1. high in pitch or frequency; -- used of sounds and voices. Opposite of low. [Narrower terms: adenoidal, pinched, nasal; altissimo; alto; countertenor, alto; falsetto; peaky, spiky; piping; shrill, sharp; screaky, screechy, squeaking, squeaky, squealing; soprano, treble; sopranino; tenor]

    Syn: high.

  2. set at a sharp or high angle or slant; as, a high-pitched roof.

    Syn: steeply pitched, steep.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
tenor

c.1300, "general meaning, prevailing course, purpose, drift," from Old French tenor "substance, contents, meaning, sense; tenor part in music" (13c. Modern French teneur), from Latin tenorem (nominative tenor) "a course," originally "continuance, uninterrupted course, a holding on," from tenere "to hold" (see tenet). The musical sense of "high male voice" is attested from late 14c. in English, so-called because the sustained melody (canto fermo) was carried by the tenor's part. Meaning "singer with a tenor voice" is from late 15c. As an adjective in this sense from 1520s.

Wiktionary
tenor

a. of or pertaining to the tenor part or range n. 1 (context archaic music English) Musical part or section that holds or performs the main melody, as opposed to the ''contratenor bassus'' and ''contratenor altus'', who perform countermelodies. 2 (context obsolete English) duration; continuance; a state of holding on in a continuous course; general tendency; career. 3 (context music English) Musical range or section higher than bass and lower than alto. 4 A person, instrument(,) or group that performs in the tenor (gloss: higher than bass and lower than alto) range. 5 tone, as of a conversation. 6 (context linguistics English) The subject in a metaphor to which attributes are ascribed. 7 (context finance English) Time to maturity of a bond. 8 Stamp; character; nature. 9 (context legal English) An exact copy of a writing, set forth in the words and figures of it. It differs from ''purport'', which is only the substance or general import of the instrument. 10 That course of thought which holds on through a discourse; the general drift or course of thought; purport; intent; meaning; understanding.

Related phrases:
WordNet
tenor

  1. n. the adult male singing voice above baritone [syn: tenor voice]

  2. the pitch range of the highest male voice

  3. an adult male with a tenor voice

  4. pervading note of an utterance; "I could follow the general tenor of his argument" [syn: strain]

tenor

  1. adj. (of a musical instrument) intermediate between alto and baritone or bass; "a tenor sax"

  2. of or close in range to the highest natural adult male voice; "tenor voice"

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Tenor (finance)

Tenor (finance) refers to the time-to-maturity of a bond, or for an interest rate swap, the length of time during this payments are made.

For a swap, tenor may also mean the coupon frequency.

For a bond, it may mean the remaining time-to-maturity as well.

Tenor (album)

Tenor is a live solo album by multi-instrumentalist and composer Joe McPhee, recorded in 1976 it was the third album released on the Swiss HatHut label and was rereleased on CD in 2000 as Tenor & Fallen Angels with a bonus track.

Tenor

Tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range is one of the highest of the male voice types. It is also used to refer to singers of that voice type. The tenor's vocal range (in choral music) lies between C, the C one octave below middle C, and A, the A above middle C. In solo work, this range extends up to C, or "tenor high C". The low extreme for tenors is roughly A (two As below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to two Fs above middle C (F). The tenor voice type is generally divided into the leggero tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or spieltenor.

Tenor (disambiguation)

A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range is higher than bass and lower than alto.

Tenor may also refer to:

  • Tenor (linguistics), the relationship between participants in a discourse
  • in finance
    • the duration or time-to-maturity of a bond or swap, see Tenor (finance)
    • the coupon frequency of an equity swap
  • in music
    • in change ringing, the bell with the lowest pitch
    • the recitation tone of a Gregorian chant
    • a tenor saxophone
    • a tenor drum
Tenor (linguistics)
  • In systemic functional linguistics, the term tenor refers to the participants in a discourse, their relationships to each other, and their purposes.
In examining how context affects language use, linguists refer to the context-specific variety of language as a register. The three aspects of the context are known as field, tenor and mode. Field refers to the subject matter or content being discussed. Mode refers to the channel (such as writing, or video-conference) of the communication. By understanding these three variables, the kind of language likely to be used in a particular setting can be predicted — and, Michael Halliday suggests, this is exactly what we do, unconsciously, as language users.
  • In analysing the parts of a metaphor, "tenor" has another meaning, unrelated to the meaning above. According to I. A. Richards, the two parts of a metaphor are the tenor and vehicle. The tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed. The vehicle is the subject from which the attributes are derived. Thus, they are broadly equivalent to the notions of target and source domains in conceptual metaphor theory.
Related phrases:

Usage examples of "tenor".

The violin and the other members of its family had taken their places somewhat as we now have them, but the number of basses and tenors was much less than at present, their place being filled by the archlute and the harpsichord.

Garcia was a tenor with a voice sufficiently deep to enable him to sing the barytone part of Don Giovanni in Paris and at subsequent performances in London.

Despite the aggressive tenor of the moment, kochan-father Brem would have seen this as an opportunity to widen association.

He had a tenor voice of remarkable power, flexibility, and range, which because of his superb musicianship was never merely, monotonously, perfect.

And she thought of Rory, bright and beautiful Rory, who would have outdanced the lot of them and raised his clear tenor voice in song.

After he swam away for some distance some of the boys amused themselves by shooting at him with their revolvers, but if they succeeded in hitting him, of which I have my doubts, his sharkship gave no sign of being in trouble and pursued the even tenor of his way until he was lost to sight.

She occupied the place as soloist in Calvary Church for a while when the choir was composed of Harry Gates, tenor, Fred Borneman, bass, M.

None could ignore the music, although they were only barely aware of the nasal tenor whose voice was not strong enough to carry over the wild squeals of the theremin and the twang of a dozen steel-stringed guitars.

As a result the protest movements seized on and adopted two Second World War novels as their own, novels that expressed the absurdist tenor of the modern revulsion.

But the tumult on the other campuses and the antiauthoritarian tenor of the times could be measured by the length of the sideburns creeping down the faces of Carolina men.

Fakredeen shot a glance at Eva and Baroni, as if to remind them of the tenor of the discourse for which he had prepared them.

With a cakey dryness about the lips, the sweetness of cotton candy filming her teeth, numb to cacophony and in her element, little Linds saw out of the corner of her eye a switched-on filament of stilted brilliance in the no-color sky, heard mobbed shrieks out of tenor with the cries of thrillseekers.

Two pairs of bodyguards walked in front of us, while the trio behind us kept up a marching song, the baritone taking up the verse and melody, the tenor gracing the end of each phrase with a high harmony that soared above like a bird, while the bass sang a slow countermelody that still managed to keep perfect time.

For if we look closely at his lifelong creative metaphor, even though his vehicle is frequently a futurological scenario, his tenor is always a variation on an Earthly theme.

With the two duets she was obedient, tamely accepting the harmonies of the composer, but on the final tenor solo, she played with the music a little, embroidering a little here, echoing a little there.