gradus

¹ American  

[gray-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  

[gray-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

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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

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gradus

I could not remember who or what gradus was—whether it was an active noun or a feminine verb or a plural conjunction, or what.

From Tom, Dick and Harry by Talbot Baines Reed

Eng. and Tudor grece, grese, plural of Old Fr. gré, step, from Lat. gradus.

From The Romance of Words (4th ed.) by Ernest Weekley

To the reader under Anne it was otherwise, for to him "verdant isles" and "waving groves" and the whole farrago of gradus epithets were not only grateful but indispensable.

From Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of the Lives of More Than 200 of the Most Prominent Personages in History by Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

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 Life of John Keats His Life and Poetry, his Friends, Critics and After-fame by Sidney Colvin

The two phrases undoubtedly point back to a similar gradus, to a similar traditional stock phraseology, and to similar beliefs: that is all.

From Beowulf An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn by R. W. Chambers

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