harmonics
Americannoun
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(used with a singular verb) the science of musical sounds.
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(used with a plural verb) the partials or overtones of a fundamental tone.
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(used with a plural verb) the flageoletlike tones of a string, as a violin string, made to vibrate so as to bring out an overtone.
noun
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(functioning as singular) the science of musical sounds and their acoustic properties
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(functioning as plural) the overtones of a fundamental note, as produced by lightly touching the string of a stringed instrument at one of its node points while playing See harmonic
Etymology
Origin of harmonics
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I like odd chord changes; when I was singing with the Jazz Passengers, that was sort of like going to college for me, they used all kinds of time signatures and harmonics and things.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 3, 2025
“There’s something that happens when you lock in to somebody and all the harmonics ping,” says Sting backup singer Jo Lawry.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 26, 2024
"We can clearly distinguish between samples with and without SPEs, and we can now explain how the observed harmonics are responsible for a wide range of single photon emitters."
From Science Daily • Apr. 23, 2024
Quantum bits can be described more precisely with the help of newly discovered harmonics as a team of 30 researchers reports in Nature Physics.
From Science Daily • Feb. 14, 2024
Because numbers are used in music to identify everything from beats to intervals to harmonics to what fingering to use, this naming system is sometimes less confusing.
From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones
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.
