First coined in 1557, fromLatinrhythmus, fromAncient Greekῥυθμός(rhuthmós,“any measured flow or movement,symmetry, rhythm”), fromῥέω(rhéō,“I flow, run, stream, gush”).
rhythm (countable anduncountable,pluralrhythms)
- Thevariation of strong and weak elements (such as duration, accent) ofsounds, notably in speech or music, overtime; abeat ormeter.
Dance to therhythm of the music.
- A specifically definedpattern of such variation.
Most dances have arhythm as distinctive as the Iambic verse in poetry
- Aflow,repetition orregularity.
Once you get therhythm of it, the job will become easy.
- Thetempo or speed of a beat, song or repetitive event.
We walked with a quick, evenrhythm.
1872,Ralph Waldo Emerson,Poetry and Imagination:If you hum or whistle therhythm of the common English metres,— of the decasyllabic quatrain, or the octosyllabic with alternate sexisyllabic, or otherrhythms,[…]
1967,Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, New York:Bigeminousrhythm was followed by bursts of extrasystoles.
- Themusical instruments which provide rhythm (mainly; not or lessmelody) in a musicalensemble.
The Baroque termbasso continuo is virtually equivalent torhythm
- A regular quantitative change in a variable (notably natural) process.
Therhythm of the seasons dominates agriculture as well as wildlife
- Controlled repetition of a phrase, incident or other element as astylisticfigure in literature and other narrative arts; the effect it creates.
The running gag is a popularrhythm in motion pictures and theater comedy
- A person's natural feeling for rhythm.
That girl's gotrhythm, watch her dance!
variation of strong and weak elements of sounds over time
tempo or speed of a beat, song, or repeated event
flow, repetition or regularity
Translations to be checked
rhythm (third-person singular simple presentrhythms,present participlerhythming,simple past and past participlerhythmed)
- (transitive) Toimpart a (particular) rhythm to.
1987, Ian Noble,Language and Narration in Céline’s Writings, page194:The pamphlet, writes Muray, 'is the supremely affirmative form in which nothing can be turned around,rhythmed or played with in synonyms and rhymes'.
2017, Robert Hassan,The Age of Distraction:And so the microchip, say, reflects a certain electronically driven speed of society, just as the invention of a flint axe, reflected a society that wasrhythmed fully by biological and environmental temporalities.
2021, Sónia Pedro Sebastião, Susana de Carvalho Spínola,Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens, page316:ISP places are, therefore, not only considered places of teaching and learning performances (see point 4): the different locationsrhythmed the entire programme.
2024, Marie-Rose Cardat,Why I left my Hometown, page184:rhythmed by a television show and a meal,as we grow older, things change.rhythmed by a baby's cry and school holidays,as we grow older, things change.rhythmed by monthly bills and a husband's envies, as we grow older, some thingsnever change.
