clef
Americannoun
-
clefs
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of clef
1570–80; < Middle French < Latin clāvis key
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Tyler's coffin was designed by her family to reflect her love of music, with a microphone and treble clef engraved on each side.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
The story quoted a few skeptics—among them the writer Harry Monaghan, who’d written a well-received roman à clef five years prior, and who had a regular column in the Post.
From Slate ● May 27, 2023
That seems far-fetched, but to Oxfordians even “Hamlet” is a pièce à clef, all the major characters being fictionalized versions of people in the earl’s life.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 21, 2023
Her third book, “American Wife,” was a darkly shaded roman à clef about a woman very much like First Lady Laura Bush.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2023
If you are working in a more unusual clef, have your teacher check your answers.
From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones
One of Sacks’ patients, for example, found that the embroidered border of his bathmat tended to transform into elaborate staves and clefs of music.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 22, 2013
The 3-D visuals during Franz Schubert are also uninspiring: the white smudges washing across the black screen aren't a patch on the spaceships and cascading treble clefs we get later.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 10, 2013
He studied at the Damrosch Institute of Musical Art, sang in choirs, doodled clefs & staffs on tablecloths and phone pads and dreamed of a career in music.
From Time Magazine Archive
But the Sourcebook also includes such arbitrary signs as plus and minus in mathematics and the clefs in music.
From Time Magazine Archive
Figure 1.11: Middle C is above the bass clef and below the treble clef; so together these two clefs cover much of the range of most voices and instruments.
From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
