Definitions

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

  • noun An interval equal to a half tone in the standard diatonic scale.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In music, an interval approximately equal to half of a tone; a minor second; a half-step.

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

  • noun (Mus.) Half a tone; -- the name commonly applied to the smaller intervals of the diatonic scale.

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

  • noun music (UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand) The musical interval equal (exactly or approximately) to half a tone or one-twelfth of an octave
  • noun music (UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand) Any of the pitches of the chromatic scale

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

  • noun the musical interval between adjacent keys on a keyboard instrument

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Because the music has been made "bitonal" by moving the accompanying piano part up two semitones (a semitone is the difference between a "natural" note and a sharp or flat).

    ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2010

  • Because the music has been made "bitonal" by moving the accompanying piano part up two semitones (a semitone is the difference between a "natural" note and a sharp or flat).

    ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2010

  • Because the music has been made "bitonal" by moving the accompanying piano part up two semitones (a semitone is the difference between a "natural" note and a sharp or flat).

    ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2010

  • Because the music has been made "bitonal" by moving the accompanying piano part up two semitones (a semitone is the difference between a "natural" note and a sharp or flat).

    ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2010

  • This possibility, whether or not avoiding a sense of tonic in either scale, is facilitated by the fact that all of the omitted tones in WT collection 1 are (naturally) 1 semitone from 2 tones in WT 2 (one above and one below), thus providing the possibility of the feeling or motivation of the half-step "pull".

    Mod squad Matthew Guerrieri 2009

  • The revolutionary sound is based on a system comprised of smaller divisions than a semitone.

    Mexico this month - February 2010

  • The revolutionary sound is based on a system comprised of smaller divisions than a semitone.

    Mexico this month - February 2010

  • The revolutionary sound is based on a system comprised of smaller divisions than a semitone.

    Mexico this month - February 2010

  • Not that there's any lack of huge, cavernous sound, and sound-effect; endless very slow, melody-free crescendos and diminuendos, uncanny thuds and knocks in the music's far distance, drones and whines and very-long-held notes that go up a semitone, stay there for a long time, and then slide back down again.

    Archive 2010-02-01 Adam Roberts 2010

  • Not that there's any lack of huge, cavernous sound, and sound-effect; endless very slow, melody-free crescendos and diminuendos, uncanny thuds and knocks in the music's far distance, drones and whines and very-long-held notes that go up a semitone, stay there for a long time, and then slide back down again.

    Lustmord, The Place Where The Black Stars Hang (1994); Stalker (1995) Adam Roberts 2010

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