heptachord

[hep-tuh-kawrd]

noun

1. a musical scale of seven notes.

2. an interval of a seventh.

3. an ancient Greek stringed instrument.

Word History and Origins

Origin of heptachord¹

From the Greek word heptáchordos, dating back to 1720–30. See hepta-, chord ¹

Example Sentences

Heptachord, hep′ta-kord, n. in Greek music, a diatonic series of seven tones, containing five whole steps and one half-step: an instrument with seven strings.

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The transition from the “one-wheeled car” of the oldest Veda, to which “one horse named seven was yoked” to the chariot of Apollo=“Seven,” whose lyre, with seven chords, struck the divine heptachord of the Pythagoreans, and who drove seven horses, coincides with that of the umbrella which, in Greece, was borne at the period of the summer solstice in the Skirophoria or “festival of the umbrella,” in honor of Athene.

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He added three new strings to the cithara, which had consisted only of four, and this heptachord was employed by Pindar, and remained long in high repute; he was also the first who marked the different tones in music.

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