octave
An interval of twelve semitones spanning eight degrees of the diatonic scale, representing a doubling or halving in pitch frequency.
Example
“The melody jumps up an octave at the beginning, then later drops back down an octave.”
Other meanings
The pitch an octave higher than a given pitch.
“The bass starts on a low E, and the tenor comes in on the octave.”
A coupler on an organ which allows the organist to sound the note an octave above the note of the key pressed (cf sub-octave)
Synonyms
- musical octave
Related words
- interoctave
- intraoctave
- millioctave
- multioctave
- octavation
- sesquioctave
- subcontraoctave
- suboctave
- superoctave
- tritave
- contra-octave
- great octave
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “octave” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; related-word lists use Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0, based on Princeton WordNet), published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.