chord
chord Lexical Profile
chord Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A group of (typically three or more) musical notes sounded together as a basis of harmony.
"The guitarist strummed a resonant minor chord to open the ballad."
An emotional feeling or sympathetic response evoked in a person (usually in the phrase 'strike a chord').
"Her honest speech about work-life balance struck a chord with many parents in the audience."
A straight line segment joining the ends of an arc or any two points on a curve, especially a circle.
"The diameter is the longest possible chord in any circle."
In engineering and aviation, the width of an airfoil from its leading edge to its trailing edge, or a principal horizontal member of a rigid truss.
"The aerospace engineers modified the wing's chord to improve lift at low speeds."
• verb
To play, harmonize, or arrange music using chords on an instrument.
"She chorded softly on the piano while the vocalist practiced the melody."
Word Nuance & Usage
Do not confuse 'chord' (a combination of musical notes or a geometric line segment) with its homophone 'cord' (a thin rope, electrical cable, or anatomical structure such as the vocal cords or spinal cord). However, the figurative expression 'strike a chord' (to evoke an emotional response) uses the musical spelling 'chord'.
• Rhymes for chord
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
The musical sense dates to Middle English as a shortening of 'accord' (from Old French 'acord', meaning agreement or harmony), later respelled with 'ch' under the influence of the geometric sense. The geometric and anatomical senses derive via Latin 'chorda' from Ancient Greek 'khordē', originally meaning a gut string or the string of a musical instrument.