polyphonousadj.

1677 R. Plot Nat. Hist. Oxford-shire 13 Tautological Polyphonous Echo's, such as return a word or more, often repeated from divers objects by simple reflection.

1740 Mem. Royal Soc. 5 79 Mr Derham supposed it to be no other than a polyphonous echo.

1846 J. E. Worcester Universal Dict. Eng. Lang. Polyphonous, having many sounds. Dr. Black.

1871 B. Jowett in tr. Plato Dialogues II. 31 One of these polyphonous pantomimic gentlemen offers to exhibit himself.

1939 W. Albig Public Opinion iv. 75 The general staff members of Hitler's storm troops are given polyphonous sirens for their automobiles.

1987 R. Boyers Atrocity & Amnesia vi. 109 The idea of The First Circle as a polyphonic work has been pursued by many critics... The author ‘expresses himself..not so much through one character or another, but chiefly through the structure of the novel’.

1993 Times Lit. Suppl. 17 Dec. 26/1 Did his many roles and his polyphonous oeuvre—novelist, librettist, composer, script-writer, reviewer, teacher—add up?

2005 Observer (Nexis) 27 Feb. 17 Rana Dasgupta's polyphonous debut novel.

1776 J. Hawkins Gen. Hist. Music II. iv. iv. 441 The precepts of polyphonous music.

1876 Macmillan's Mag. 34 193 The rich harmony of polyphonous church music.

1934 W. W. Gill Manx Dial. ii. 19 A relic of the artistic polyphonous secular music of the 13th century.

1995 Independent (Nexis) 17 Nov. 2 For a group that was so into richly harmonised polyphonous sounds, ‘Lady Madonna’ is a distinctively rhythmic record.

a1866 J. Grote in Jrnl. Philol. (1872) 4 178 The more the dianoematism is kept living in a language..the less do the words tend to cohere, and the language is more polyphonous and monosyllabic.

1880 Nature 19 Feb. 380/1 [We] cling so tenaciously to our own polyphonous alphabet.

1916 Amer. Jrnl. Semitic Lang. & Lit. 32 221 The ideographic and polyphonous character of cuneiform had been demonstrated.

1969 Jrnl. Amer. Oriental Soc. 89 175/1 The question remains open if this d is polyphonous.

1991 P. B. Gough & C. Juel in L. Rieben Learning to Read iv. 55 Knowing the cipher will not enable one to recognize (or spell) exception words.., nor will it alone determine the pronunciation (or spelling) of a large number of polyphonous forms.