> as lemmas

1579 W. Wilkinson Confut. Familye of Loue f. 26^v He might runne descant at will, and quauer at pleasure vpon this straunge doctrine.

1598 Meane in Spending in T. Tyro Roring Megge sig. F3 That gentlemanly habit beneficence: whose praises no wight can expresse, though hee runne diuision vppon them halfe a yeare together.

1602 T. Fitzherbert Def. Catholyke Cause f. 47 This matter of Squyre (whervpon yow runne all this descant) is a meere fiction.

1607 T. Heywood Woman Kilde with Kindnesse sig. G4 Vpon this instrument, Her fingers haue run quicke diuision.

1634 R. Brathwait Strange Metamorphosis x. sig. C10^v She hath no skill at all to compose or set a whit, or to runne descant on a ground.

1740 H. Bracken Farriery Improv'd (ed. 2) II. vi. 274 I might yet run several Divisions upon this Topic.

1806 T. Busby Compl. Dict. Music (ed. 2) Those soprano performers, whose voices are of a clear, fluted, and shrill tone, and who run divisions with a close and liquid sweetness, are said to warble.

1821 Examiner 300/1 The gentle lady [may] run divisions on roses and myrtle-bowers.

1871 Pennsylvania School Jrnl. May 319/2 He..ran a scale, which rippled beneath his fingers in tangled curves of liquid melody.

1881 H. N. Hudson in Compl. Wks. W. Shakespeare XX. 50 Descant, in music, was used somewhat variously. Here [sc. in Lucrece] it means, apparently, to run variations.

1969 Salina (Kansas) Jrnl. 12 June 23/4 (advt.) He adjusts to the mood of his audience in the time it takes to run an arpeggio.

1974 Irish University Rev. 4 48 His version..goes beyond Carolan in rhythmic energy, although the Irish is the ground-work on which he ‘runs division’.

2009 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 30 July c5 Freddie Washington connected a bass line with Mr. Carlock's playing and then ran variations on it.