Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or containing melody.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In music: Melodious; pertaining to a pleasing succession of sounds.
  • Pertaining to melody as distinguished from harmony and rhythm.

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

  • adjective Of the nature of melody; relating to, containing, or made up of, melody; melodious.

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

  • adjective of, relating to, or having melody
  • adjective melodious, tuneful

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

  • adjective containing or constituting or characterized by pleasing melody
  • adjective of or relating to melody

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

melody +‎ -ic, 19th century

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Examples

  • -- Next to the recognition and comparison of the different melodic sections of a composition (in a word, the _melodic delineation_ of the whole), the most significant task in music analysis is the locating and classifying of the cadences.

    Lessons in Music Form A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and Designs Employed in Musical Composition Percy Goetschius 1898

  • One tone, one chord, a single movement, three, four notes in melodic succession, are in their musical apperception the substratum of such unutterable and intense musical emotion that it becomes practically impossible in these sound-areas to make music freely and completely in the manner of Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, or Palestrina.

    Banishing silence M-mv 2005

  • The album is often described as melodic and soulful, drawing on complex guitar riffs, solid drum beats, upright bass playing, gritty B-3 organ, and vintage electric pianos.

    San Francisco Sentinel 2010

  • The album is often described as melodic and soulful, drawing on complex guitar riffs, solid drum beats, upright bass playing, gritty B-3 organ, and vintage electric pianos.

    San Francisco Sentinel 2010

  • The album is often described as melodic and soulful, drawing on complex guitar riffs, solid drum beats, upright bass playing, gritty B-3 organ, and vintage electric pianos.

    San Francisco Sentinel 2009

  • While I would never call his music "melodic" --he's not a tunesmith-- as he grew older it acquired a patina of lyricism that I really enjoy.

    Boulez/Maderna Patrick J. Smith 2007

  • I can play a tune if I recall a melodic and harmonic impression of it – people request songs all the time that I forgot I knew, but there they are in my memory.

    Disneyland’s Ragtime Pianist: Michael Pollock | The Disney Blog 2009

  • More generally, Regis' preference for chanson-like melodies in his Latin-texted works recalling the melodic styles of Du Fay and especially Binchois sets him apart from his contemporaries and may be related to his extended personal contact with these composers.

    Archive 2009-04-01 Lu 2009

  • ED GORDON, host: The unmistakable voice that once described as a melodic whisper has drifted into silence.

    A Tribute to Jazz Vocalist Shirley Horn 2005

  • Prof. GARDNER: Stravinsky is the person early in this century who essentially undid music which we would call melodic or harmonic.

    Extraordinary Minds: Portraits of Four Exceptional Individuals and an Examination of Our Own Extraordinariness 1997

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