adjective
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of or relating to melody
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of or relating to a part in a piece of music
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tuneful or melodious
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of melodic
1815–25; < Late Latin melōdicus < Greek melōidikós. See melody, -ic
Explanation
Something that's tuneful or pretty to listen to is melodic. If your French teacher has a friendly smile and a melodic voice, you could probably sit and listen to her talk for hours. Anything sweet sounding — a bird's trill, a poet's voice, or the tune you sing in the shower — is melodic. A more technical meaning of the word is "containing melody," the definition a professional musician might use. Melody is a quality of music defined as "tunefulness" or "a satisfying series of notes." Music teachers play melodic patterns for their students to duplicate, and composers sometimes combine melodic phrases to form a symphony. The Greek root of melodic is melos, or "song."
Vocabulary lists containing melodic
Music - Middle School
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Music - High School
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"Superman and Me" and "A Smart Cookie/It's Our Story, Too"
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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.
In the late 2010s, a melodic branch of rap emerged that featured layered voices borrowed from rock acts like Alice in Chains and the desperation of the punk offshoot originally known as emotional hardcore.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
That message sang me to sleep on many nights, and that story explains why it’s stayed with me all this time — it is a masterpiece of melodic sorcery and science, as one.
From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2026
One of the tracks, a brightly melodic calypso theme titled “St. Thomas,” is Rollins’ best known composition, and a standard in the lexicon of jazz tunes.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 26, 2026
A few weeks after Gatto took over vocals, they knocked out four songs, highlighted by the aggressive doom of “Time to Burn” and the blasting guitars that echo Gatto’s melodic angst on “Hot Pursuit.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026
Rewrite each scale from Figure 4.18 as an ascending and descending melodic minor scale.
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.
