semiquaver

American  

[sem-ee-kwey-ver] / ˈsɛm iˌkweɪ vər /

noun

Music (chiefly British).

1. a sixteenth note.

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semiquaver British  

/ ˈsɛmɪˌkweɪvə /

noun

1. Usual US and Canadian name: sixteenth note.  music a note having the time value of one-sixteenth of a semibreve

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Etymology

Origin of semiquaver

First recorded in 1570–80; semi- + quaver

Example Sentences

The music dies down, there’s this moment of silence — and then the piano explodes with these semiquavers, with an E flat minor chord in the left hand.

From New York Times

But in the next moment Taylor shifts into a learned observation about the sunset, made in “a different tone, thoughtful, adult, a little sad, with the characteristic Elizabethan semiquaver, from a lifetime of lotus eating.”

From New York Times

The next note, G, is just one semiquaver.

From Literature

I vaguely wondered how I might annotate it on a musical stave – a run of semiquavers, a minim’s pause, and triplets: presto agitato!

From The Guardian

One dash, or more, through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, or demiÐsemiquavers.

From Project Gutenberg