MELODY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does melody mean? 

• MELODY (noun)
  The noun MELODY has 2 senses:

1. a succession of notes forming a distinctive sequence

2. the perception of pleasant arrangements of musical notes

  Familiarity information: MELODY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MELODY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A succession of notes forming a distinctive sequence

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

air; line; melodic line; melodic phrase; melody; strain; tune

Context example:

she was humming an air from Beethoven

Hypernyms ("melody" is a kind of...):

music (an artistic form of auditory communication incorporating instrumental or vocal tones in a structured and continuous manner)

Meronyms (parts of "melody"):

musical phrase; phrase (a short musical passage)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "melody"):

fanfare; flourish; tucket ((music) a short lively tune played on brass instruments)

glissando (a rapid series of ascending or descending notes on the musical scale)

roulade ((music) an elaborate run of several notes sung to one syllable)

leitmotif; leitmotiv (a melodic phrase that accompanies the reappearance of a person or situation (as in Wagner's operas))

theme song (a melody that recurs and comes to represent a musical play or movie)

signature; signature tune; theme song (a melody used to identify a performer or a dance band or radio/tv program)

idea; melodic theme; musical theme; theme ((music) melodic subject of a musical composition)

part; voice (the melody carried by a particular voice or instrument in polyphonic music)

Derivation:

melodious (containing or constituting or characterized by pleasing melody)

melodious (having a musical sound; especially a pleasing tune)

melodize (supply a melody for)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The perception of pleasant arrangements of musical notes

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

melody; tonal pattern

Hypernyms ("melody" is a kind of...):

musical perception (the auditory perception of musical sounds)

Derivation:

melodious (containing or constituting or characterized by pleasing melody)

melodious (having a musical sound; especially a pleasing tune)

 Context examples 

And here are a new set of Irish melodies.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Spending time in a new setting will be simply divine, and later you will replay that trip in your mind like your favorite melody.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

On the second, the medication was administered, but they only wore earphones with no melody.

(Music believed to boost hypertension treatment, Agenciabrasil/EBC)

Hagar, in a fine dramatic melody, promised both, and proceeded to call up the spirit who would bring the love philter.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

On the second, the medication was administered, but they only wore earphones with no melody.

(Music believed to boost hypertension treatment, Agência Brasil/EBC)

It was too wholly her, and he sat always amazed at the divine melody of her pure soprano voice.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“On the voyage, I shall endeavour,” said Mr. Micawber, “occasionally to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins will, I trust, be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her sea-legs on—an expression in which I hope there is no conventional impropriety—she will give them, I dare say, “Little Tafflin”.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

A general laugh followed this sally at the dentist's expense, in the midst of which the gleeman placed his battered harp upon his knee, and began to pick out a melody upon the frayed strings.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When he looked about him for another and a less intractable damsel to immortalize in melody, memory produced one with the most obliging readiness.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)