rhythm
The variation of strong and weak elements (such as duration, accent) of sounds, notably in speech or music, over time; a beat or meter.
Example
“Dance to the rhythm of the music.”
Other meanings
A specifically defined pattern of such variation.
“Most dances have a rhythm as distinctive as the Iambic verse in poetry”
A flow, repetition or regularity.
“Once you get the rhythm of it, the job will become easy.”
Synonyms
- meter
- rhythm section
- musical rhythm
Related words
- microrhythm
- rhythm band
- rhythm box
- alpha rhythm
- battle rhythm
- circadian rhythm
- escape rhythm
- Lombard rhythm
- Lombardic rhythm
- poly-rhythm
- rhythm and blues
- rhythm and grime
Example sentences
Word history
From Ancient Greek "ῥυθμός" (any measured flow or movement, symmetry, rhythm).
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “rhythm” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above; 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.