Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A chanting, intoning, or recitation in a half-singing style: especially used in Jewish synagogues. Also spelled cantilation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A chanting; recitation or reading with musical modulations.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The intonation of a sentence, codified by marks which are read as sequences of musical pitches.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun liturgical chanting

Etymologies

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Examples

  • To the comment that the Orientalist composer's intoxicating minor mode—based on what is called the ahava-rabba mode in Hebrew cantillation and klezmer music—is virtually the same as the mode Liszt called the "Hungarian Minor" in his rhapsodies, Mr. Botstein says that "many scholars have pointed out that the same musical gestures end up as ethnic signals for any number of cultures."

    Go East, Monsieur Barrymore Laurence Scherer 2012

  • Broad themes are discussed, such as the Divine Office and the Mass, but also detailed subjects such as psalmody, cantillation, modes, and pivotal chant manuscripts.

    Book Notice: Gregorian Chant: A Guide to the History and Liturgy 2009

  • This year, my son studied his Torah portion and other prayers with a rabbi and learned the cantillation marks that guide the chanting.

    Susan Katz Miller: 18 Questions You Might Want To Ask About Our Interfaith Son's Bar Mitzvah And Coming-Of-Age Susan Katz Miller 2011

  • This year, my son studied his Torah portion and other prayers with a rabbi and learned the cantillation marks that guide the chanting.

    Susan Katz Miller: 18 Questions You Might Want To Ask About Our Interfaith Son's Bar Mitzvah And Coming-Of-Age Susan Katz Miller 2011

  • In 1892, he published a study of the neginot (cantillation marks) in the Masoretic text of the Bible, and in the next decade, working with Herbert Adler (1876 – 1940), a lawyer and nephew of Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler (1839 – 1911), prepared what became the standard British edition and translation of the mahzor (festival prayer book).

    Nina Ruth Davis Salaman. 2009

  • While it would appear that boys and girls followed a common curriculum, there was gender differentiation: Girls received instruction in sewing and needlework and boys in cantillation of Torah and haftarah.

    Education of Jewish Girls in the United States. 2009

  • As for the melody, here I touched upon the hasidic melodies and Yiddish songs of my late father with faint traces of Biblical cantillation.

    Naomi Shemer. 2009

  • Of all of them, the cantillation for Eicha is the most beautiful, and the poetry of Eicha the most poignant and lovely if also tragic and horrible.

    Archive 2008-08-01 2008

  • We read our books with special cantillation notes, using different melodies for different books.

    Archive 2008-08-01 2008

  • Of all of them, the cantillation for Eicha is the most beautiful, and the poetry of Eicha the most poignant and lovely if also tragic and horrible.

    Tisha Ba'av 2008

Comments

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  • not to be confused with catillation.

    October 31, 2008

  • Good Juliet, a nursing sensation,

    Would burst into sweet cantillation.

    Her unbidden trilling

    Made illness less chilling

    And filled me with warm consolation.

    October 11, 2017