mediant

American  

[mee-dee-uhnt] / ˈmi di ənt /

noun

1. the third degree of a major or minor musical scale.

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mediant British  

/ ˈmiːdɪənt /

noun

1. music

   1. the third degree of a major or minor scale

   2. ( as modifier )

      a mediant chord

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Etymology

Origin of mediant

1720–30; < Italian mediante < Late Latin mediant- (stem of mediāns ), present participle of mediāre to be in the middle. See medium, -ant

Example Sentences

Each of them young,—each of them passionate lovers of Nature,—each brimming with hopes, and equipped with commanding intellect,—they formed the three-fold chord, with its tonic, dominant and mediant, of which is born all music....

From A Day with Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Byron, May Clarissa Gillington

The exposition ends with some dreamy, pianissimo reminiscences of the closing theme in the mediant keys of F, D and B major, delicately scored for the wood-wind instruments and horns.

From Music: An Art and a Language by Spalding, Walter Raymond

Now, the twelfth reversed is nothing but the fifth or dominant, and the seventeenth becomes, by a double reversion, the third or mediant of the tonic.

From Delsarte System of Oratory by Various

“Ah, you are mediant, incorrigible,” said the lady, in broken English, laughing as she spoke.

From Won from the Waves by Greene, John B.

Putting, pound, potassium, pot, porter; initial p, mediant t - that was his idea, poor little boy!

From Across the Plains by Stevenson, Robert Louis