rhythm
(rĭth′əm)n.1. Movement or variation characterized by the regular recurrence or alternation of different quantities or conditions: the rhythm of the tides.
2. The patterned, recurring alternations of contrasting elements of sound or speech.
3. Music a. The patterning of musical sound, as by differences in the timing, duration, or stress of consecutive notes.
b. A specific kind of such patterning: a waltz rhythm.
c. A group of instruments supplying the rhythm in a band.
4. a. The pattern or flow of sound created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in accentual verse or of long and short syllables in quantitative verse.
b. The similar but less formal sequence of sounds in prose.
c. A specific kind of metrical pattern or flow: iambic rhythm.
5. a. The sense of temporal development created in a work of literature or a film by the arrangement of formal elements such as the length of scenes, the nature and amount of dialogue, or the repetition of motifs.
b. A regular or harmonious pattern created by lines, forms, and colors in painting, sculpture, and other visual arts.
6. The pattern of development produced in a literary or dramatic work by repetition of elements such as words, phrases, incidents, themes, images, and symbols.
7. Procedure or routine characterized by regularly recurring elements, activities, or factors: the rhythm of civilization; the rhythm of the lengthy negotiations.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
rhythm
(ˈrɪðəm) n1. (Music, other)
a. the arrangement of the relative durations of and accents on the notes of a melody, usually laid out into regular groups (bars) of beats, the first beat of each bar carrying the stress
b. any specific arrangement of such groupings; time: quadruple rhythm.
2. (Poetry) (in poetry)
a. the arrangement of words into a more or less regular sequence of stressed and unstressed or long and short syllables
b. any specific such arrangement; metre
3. (Art Terms) (in painting, sculpture, architecture, etc) a harmonious sequence or pattern of masses alternating with voids, of light alternating with shade, of alternating colours, etc
4. (Physiology) any sequence of regularly recurring functions or events, such as the regular recurrence of certain physiological functions of the body, as the cardiac rhythm of the heartbeat
[C16: from Latin rhythmus, from Greek rhuthmos; related to rhein to flow]
ˈrhythmless adj
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
rhythm
(ˈrɪð əm)
n. 1. movement or procedure with uniform or patterned recurrence of a beat, accent, or the like.
2. a. the pattern of regular or irregular pulses caused in music by the occurrence of strong and weak melodic and harmonic beats.
b. a particular form of this: triple rhythm.
3. measured movement, as in dancing.
4. the pattern of recurrent strong and weak accents, long and short syllables, and vocalization and silence in speech.
5. Pros. a. metrical or rhythmical form; meter.
b. a particular kind of metrical form.
c. metrical movement.
6. a patterned repetition of a motif, formal element, etc., at regular or irregular intervals in the same or a modified form.
7. Physiol. the regular recurrence of an action or function, as of the beat of the heart or the menstrual cycle.
8. the regular recurrence of particular phases, elements, etc.: the rhythm of the seasons.
9. the regular recurrence of related elements in a progression or other system of motion: the importance of rhythm in film editing.
[1550–60; < Latin rhythmus < Greek rhythmós, akin to rheîn to flow]
rhyth′mic (-mɪk) rhyth′mi•cal, adj.
rhyth′mi•cal•ly, adv.
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