First recorded in 1590–1600
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Curly’s voice cracked which he’d try to cover up by sliding up or down a half note.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2022
The episode ends ludicrously: as Brownshirts riot around Innitzer's palace, Soprano Wilma Lipp and 200 members of the Wiener Jeunesse Choir huddle primly in the plaza, singing Mozart's Alleluia without skipping a half note.
From Time Magazine Archive
The same length may be written as a half note and a quarter note tied together.
From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones
Figure 1.43: In any particular section of a piece of music, a half note is always twice as long as a quarter note.
From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones
The tied quarters here would sound exactly like a half note crossing the bar line.
From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones
Mr. Dunlop arrived at the brown-brick nursing home nearly four years ago, a strong-willed but slightly bent half-note.
From New York Times ● Dec. 9, 2011
But the soprano who starts a half-note too high will shatter glass and her hopes of auditioning for the Met by the time she gets to the "land of the free."
From Time Magazine Archive
The suspension, instead of being sustained as a half-note, may be repeated on the second quarter, as at c.
From A Treatise on Simple Counterpoint in Forty Lessons by Lehmann, Friedrich Johann
"I called in the hope of finding his Grace at home," he began, with a half-note of interrogation.
From The Duke Decides by Hill, Headon
Also, a rhythmic figure, as at c, where a half-note occupies the second and third quarters, may be used.
From A Treatise on Simple Counterpoint in Forty Lessons by Lehmann, Friedrich Johann
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.
