accompaniment
[uh-kuhm-puh-ni-muh nt, uh-kuhmp-ni-]
- something incidental or added for ornament, symmetry, etc.
- Music. a part in a composition designed to serve as background and support for more important parts.
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Origin of accompaniment
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
concomitantattributecomplementaccessoryadjunctsupplementaugmentationattachmentappendageattendantappurtenanceenrichmentenhancementbackingbackinstrumentpartharmonybackgroundExamples from the Web for accompaniments
Historical Examples
Of what value to the salads are the accompaniments often served with them?
Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
His followers, that is to say, by repeating His life would experience its accompaniments.
Pax VobiscumHenry Drummond
I arrange her business and I play her accompaniments, and, as I said, I love her and she loves me.
A Singer from the SeaAmelia Edith Huddleston Barr
Now a siege was necessary, with all its accompaniments of blood and woe.
Henry IV, Makers of HistoryJohn S. C. Abbott
And sometimes there would be like accompaniments to meteoric streams.
Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. IHerbert Spencer
accompaniment
- something that accompanies or is served or used with something else
- something inessential or subsidiary that is added, as for ornament or symmetry
- music a subordinate part for an instrument, voices, or an orchestra
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for accompaniments
accompaniment
n.
1744, from French accompagnement (13c.), from accompagner (see accompany). Musical sense is earliest.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper