grace note

noun

Music.

1. a note not essential to the harmony or melody, added as an embellishment, especially an appoggiatura.

grace note

noun

1. music a note printed in small type to indicate that it is melodically and harmonically nonessential

Word History and Origins

Origin of grace note¹

First recorded in 1815–25

Example Sentences

The painter adds, as grace notes, eight daubs of red, two no larger than a speck, to the prevailing gray.

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I had never had an affair before, and these fantasy wheels seemed like the perfect grace note for my Hollywood love story.

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In a grace note, the actor plays himself as a young man, too, as though his older self is still stuck in his past.

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A truly insidious horror film might have found a way to use bloody humor as a nervous grace note to offset what’s tangibly distressing about our gnawing powerlessness.

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In a riskier but effective grace note, interspersed throughout are poetic, home-movie-fashioned interludes, scenes of the girls at play that suggest missed experiences.

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