plainsong
Americannoun
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the unisonous vocal music used in the Christian church from the earliest times.
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modal liturgical music; Gregorian chant.
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a cantus firmus or theme chosen for contrapuntal development.
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any simple and unadorned melody or air.
noun
Etymology
Origin of plainsong
1505–15; translation of Medieval Latin cantus plānus
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.
Like that wisecrack, Hobson’s style is colloquial throughout; he works in American plainsong even when summoning voices from beyond.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 3, 2021
And at the appointed hour, just as their guidebook had promised, the transfiguring music of plainsong rose from the crypt below them, a few wide steps down from the main body of the church.
From The New Yorker • Sep. 10, 2018
Members of the choir will sing to plainsong a verse of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, and then the organist will improvise the next verse.
From Washington Post • Mar. 31, 2017
I think of him in the lineage of bardic recitation and plainsong.
From Slate • Aug. 12, 2016
If their prayer is like plainsong, chanted in unison, their work is like harmony, a bright medley of voices.
From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein
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.
