perfect pitch

perfect pitch (countable and uncountable, plural perfect pitches)

1. (music, uncountable) The ability to identify a note by name on hearing it, or to re-create a specified note from memory, without the benefit of an externally provided reference pitch.

   Synonym: absolute pitch

   Coordinate term: relative pitch

2. (figurative, uncountable) By extension, a reliable innate sense of exactly what is true, appropriate, or needed in a given particular situation.
   • 2015, Sophia Nguyen, “Mumblecore's Maestro: The perfect pitch of filmmaker Andrew Bujalski”, in Harvard Magazine, September-October 2015:

     Bujalski has perfect pitch: an instinct for how language meanders, and the lacunae it circles around.

3. (music, less common, countable or uncountable) The exact pitch of a note, described by its frequency in vibrations per second.

• pitch-perfect

• pitch perfect, pitch-perfect