grace note

American  

noun

Music.

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

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grace note British  

noun

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

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Etymology

Origin of grace note

First recorded in 1815–25

Example Sentences

The rainbow, however ephemeral, provides more than a grace note.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 1, 2026

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

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 1, 2025

“How to Break” abandons showing for telling long before it hits the end of its nearly two-hour, no-intermission run time, but the design’s visual ambiguity is a welcome grace note.

From Seattle Times • Apr. 5, 2023

The cell in total is five notes, but the first three notes are a kind of grace note; the main notes are the two after that.

From New York Times • Mar. 13, 2022

Then I discovered that there is a trill, a tiny grace note or yodel, at the end of his second note.

From Wilderness Ways by Copeland, Charles