melody

From Middle English melodie, melodye, from Old French melodie, from Latin melodia, from Ancient Greek μελῳδίᾱ (melōidíā, “singing, chanting”), from μέλος (mélos, “musical phrase”) + ἀοιδή (aoidḗ, “song”), contracted form ᾠδή (ōidḗ).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛl.ə.di/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛl.ə.di/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

melody (plural melodies)

1. A sequence of notes that makes up a musical phrase
   • 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], “The Sayings of Slid (whose Soul is by the Sea)”, in The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 15:

     There is a melody upon the Earth as though ten thousand streams all sang together for their homes that they had forsaken in the hills.

   • 1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 1, in The Subtle Minotaur:

     Slowly she turned round and faced towards a neat white bungalow, set some way back from the path behind a low hedge of golden privet. No light showed, but someone there was playing the piano. The strange elusiveness of the soft, insistent melody seemed to draw her forward.

• (sequence of notes that makes up a musical phrase): tune

• harmony
• rhythm
• tone color

• melodrama

• scale
• tune
• harmony
• music

• moyled