cantilenan.
Music.
1. The plain-song or canto-fermo in old church music; the melody or ‘air’ in any composition, now usually the highest part. Also attributive.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > type of music > vocal music > a song > [noun]
songeOE
leothOE
galec1200
rounc1225
laya1240
gammec1425
muse1528
cantion1579
madrigal1589
canzon1590
canzone1590
canton1594
canto1603
cantilene1635
cantilena1740
Lied1852
art song1875
canzonetta1947
society > leisure > the arts > music > musical sound > harmony or sounds in combination > [noun] > part in harmony or counterpoint > melody or ground
plainsonga1450
ground1592
melody1728
cantilena1740
canto1782
canto fermo1789
air1813
cantus firmus1847
cantus1887
musica plana1940
1740 J. Grassineau tr. S. De Brossard Musical Dict. 19 Cantilenæ are no more than songs, and signifies in general pieces of melody well composed.
1789 C. Burney Gen. Hist. Music III. 165 The cantilena, or principal melody, was not given, as it is by modern composers, to the soprano, or highest part.
1832 C. MacFarlane Lives Banditti I. i. 38 They are sung in a sort of recitative, monotonous cantilena style.
1964 Listener 8 Oct. 558/1 A singer's cantilena style.
2. A ballad.
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1774 ‘J. Collier’ Musical Trav. 45 My cantilena was often rude.
1867 G. A. Macfarren Six Lect. Harmony i. 20 The people may be said to make their cantilenas in the very act of singing them.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1888; most recently modified version published online September 2019).
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