MELODY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Melody

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/mˈɛlədi/ Listen

noun

Melody n. (pl. melodies)

A sweet or agreeable succession of sounds. "Lulled with sound of sweetest melody."

(Mus.) A rhythmical succession of single tones, ranging for the most part within a given key, and so related together as to form a musical whole, having the unity of what is technically called a musical thought, at once pleasing to the ear and characteristic in expression. Note: Melody consists in a succession of single tones; harmony is a consonance or agreement of tones, also a succession of consonant musical combinations or chords.

The air or tune of a musical piece.

Synonyms: See Harmony.

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Etymology of 'Melody'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Melody" Quotes from Famous Books

... poor young girl who, seeing that he was well-dressed, curtsied to him, saying "Heaven preserve you, monseigneur." In saying this her voice had such sympathetic sweetness that the silversmith felt his soul ravished by this feminine melody, and conceived an affection for the girl, the more so as, tormented with ideas of marriage as he was, everything was favourable thereto. Nevertheless, as he had passed the wench by he dared not go back, because he was as timid as a young maid who would ...

— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... of a stain. I have known thee, Faith, since thou wast a child, and thou hast always had an influence over me. As the notes of the youthful harper of Israel scared away the demons from the bosom of Saul, so do the tones of thy voice thrill me like a melody from the past. So tell me of thyself and of all that concerns thee, so far, at least, as thou canst impart thy thoughts and feelings ...

— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... in travail between Thought and Being, longs above everything to realize itself and become articulate, and never has it found such width of understanding, such melody of speech, as in this Shakespeare. "I have often said, and will often repeat," writes Goethe, "that the final cause and consummation of all natural and human activity is dramatic poetry." Englishmen do not appear yet to understand what arrogance ...

— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... to repeat the arrangements for her comfort. Then she returned, and sitting down at the piano struck with a sort of soft firmness a few low, soothing chords, out of which a lulling melody grew. With her fingers still resting on the keys she turned her stately head, and glanced through the open door ...

— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... sit silent, more bodeful of the direct antagonism of things than of their insensate and stolid obstructiveness. Vague and quaint imaginings had haunted Sue in the days when her intellect scintillated like a star, that the world resembled a stanza or melody composed in a dream; it was wonderfully excellent to the half-aroused intelligence, but hopelessly absurd at the full waking; that the first cause worked automatically like a somnambulist, and not reflectively like a sage; that at the framing of the terrestrial ...

— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

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