Definitions

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

  • noun The fourth tone of the diatonic scale in solfeggio.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In solmization, the syllable used for the fourth tone of the scale—that is, the subdominant. In the major scale of C this tone is F, which is therefore sometimes specifically called fa.
  • To fall, in any sense.
  • To have as one's lot or share; get; obtain.
  • To claim; pretend to.
  • noun An abbreviation of free of all average, a phrase used in marine-insurance policies. See average, n.
  • noun Fall.
  • noun Share; due.
  • noun Lot; chance.
  • To sound the fourth note of the scale in solmization: as, do, re, me, fa, sol (or soh), etc.
  • noun An abbreviation of Free and Accepted Masons.
  • noun An abbreviation of Fellow of the Antiquarian Society;
  • noun of Fellow of the Society of Arts;
  • noun of free alongside ship.

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

  • noun A syllable applied to the fourth tone of the diatonic scale in solmization.
  • noun The tone F.

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

  • noun music A syllable used in solfège to represent the fourth note of a major scale.

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

  • noun the syllable naming the fourth (subdominant) note of the diatonic scale in solmization

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Medieval Latin; see gamut.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the first syllable of the Latin word famuli, extracted of the poem Mira gestorum famuli tuorum.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word fa.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "fa" in Hungarian means: tree

    August 7, 2012