gradus

¹ American  

[grey-duhs] / ˈgreɪ dəs /

noun

Music.

• graduses
  plural

1. a work consisting wholly or in part of exercises of increasing difficulty.

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gradus ² American  

[grey-duhs] / ˈgreɪ dəs /

noun

• graduses
  plural

1. a dictionary of prosody, especially one that gives word quantities and poetic phrases and that is intended to aid students in the writing of Latin and Greek verse.

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gradus British  

/ ˈɡreɪdəs /

noun

1. a book of études or other musical exercises arranged in order of increasing difficulty

2. prosody a dictionary or textbook of prosody for use in writing Latin or Greek verse

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• graduses
  plural

Etymology

Origin of gradus¹

< Latin: grade, step

Origin of gradus²

First recorded in 1755–65; after Gradus ad Parnassum (a step to Parnassus), Latin title of a dictionary of prosody much used in English public schools during the 18th and 19th centuries

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gradus

There can be no doubt that it was this passage which induced St. Liguori to conclude that if the gradus propinquior were the first or second, it should be expressed in the petition.

From The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, June 1865 by Various

"A gradus ad Parnassum a wanting," said Mr. Cibber.

From Peg Woffington by Charles Reade

Gressus is a step that is being taken; gradus that is taken.

From Döderlein's Hand-book of Latin Synonymes by Ludwig Döderlein

Two or three such poems if God should spare me, written in the course of the next six years would be a famous gradus ad Parnassum altissimum.

From Aspects of Literature by J. Middleton Murry

The only publications which the Company continues to issue are a Latin gradus and almanacks, of which it had at one time the entire monopoly.

From Old and New London Volume I by Walter Thornbury