sonority
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sonority
1515–25; < Medieval Latin sonōritās < Late Latin: melodiousness, equivalent to Latin sonōr ( us ) ( see sonorous) + -itās -ity
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.
See Examples For:
Bax was a true partner at the piano, adjusting almost magically to every interpretive twist or turn by Hadelich, and fully providing the kind of near-orchestral sonority the score requires.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 11, 2021
“This silvery, fluty, bell-like sonority that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once.”
From Washington Post ● Jun. 2, 2020
By the end, as Marnie sings “I’m free!” in upward-vaulting intervals, she is accompanied by an intricate, vital new sonority of piccolos, celesta, harp, and bowed crotales.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 29, 2018
Tendler offered a focused six-minute study in sonority and its absence.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 15, 2018
The new Steinway Grand is a glorious masterpiece in power, sonority, singing quality, and perfect harmonic effects, affording delight even to my old piano-weary fingers.
From Franz Liszt by Huneker, James
These consisted of a Rameau/Handel program, studies in luxuriant sonorities.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2025
Since the 1990s we’ve grown accustomed to hip-hop importing and metabolizing the sonorities and techniques of jazz.
From New York Times ● Jul. 5, 2023
He makes the swirling busyness and tart sonorities of Berio’s “Feuerklavier” sound like a crackling blaze; he delves below the undulant grace and tenderness of Lieberson’s “Breeze of Delight” to reveal the music’s eerie undertow.
From New York Times ● Feb. 4, 2021
They find out what it feels like to be a viola within their own instrumental bodies and sonorities.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2020
If we could listen to them all at once, fully orchestrated, in their immense ensemble, we might become aware of the counterpoint, the balance of tones and timbres and harmonics, the sonorities.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
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.
