different between harmonic vs polyphonic

English

Alternative forms

• harmonick (obsolete)

Etymology

From Latin harmonicus, from Ancient Greek ????????? (harmonikós), from ??????? (harmonía, “harmony”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /h??(?)?m?n?k/
• Rhymes: -?n?k

Adjective

harmonic (comparative more harmonic, superlative most harmonic)

1. pertaining to harmony
2. pleasant to hear; harmonious; melodious
3. (mathematics) used to characterize various mathematical entities or relationships supposed to bear some resemblance to musical consonance

4. recurring periodically
5. (phonology) Exhibiting or applying constraints on what vowels (e.g. front/back vowels only) may be found near each other and sometimes in the entire word.
6. (Australianist linguistics) Of or relating to a generation an even number of generations distant from a particular person.
   • 1966, Kenneth Hale, Kinship Reflections in Syntax: Some Australian languages

     A person is harmonic with respect to members of his own generation and with respect to members of all even-numbered generations counting away from his own (e.g., his grandparents' generation, his grandchildren's generation, etc.).

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

harmonic (plural harmonics)

1. (physics) A component frequency of the signal of a wave that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency.
2. (music) The place where, on a bowed string instrument, a note in the harmonic series of a particular string can be played without the fundamental present.
3. (mathematics) One of a class of functions that enter into the development of the potential of a nearly spherical mass due to its attraction.
4. (CB radio slang) One's child.
   • 1967, CQ: the Radio Amateur's Journal (volume 23, issues 7-12, page 140)

     Games for the harmonics, (children), YL's and XYL's and the OM's, plus free soda for all.

   • 1988, Amateur Radio (volume 44, issues 1-6, page 38)

     The harmonics (kids, I mean) sometimes failed to recognize me on the rare occasions when I emerged from the shack […]

Translations

Anagrams

• choirman, chromian, omniarch, rahmonic

English

Adjective

polyphonic (comparative more polyphonic, superlative most polyphonic)

1. of or relating to polyphony

   a polyphonic ringtone

2. (music) having two or more independent but harmonic melodies; contrapuntal
3. (of an electronic device) able to play more than one musical note at the same time
4. Of a text: capable of being read in more than one way.

Translations