different between harmony vs cordiality

English

Etymology

First attested in 1602. From Middle English armonye, from Old French harmonie/armonie, from Latin harmonia, from Ancient Greek ??????? (harmonía, “joint, union, agreement, concord of sounds”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?h??m?ni/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?h??m?ni/
• Homophone: hominy (god-guard merger and weak vowel merger)

Noun

harmony (countable and uncountable, plural harmonies)

1. Agreement or accord.
   • December 4 2010, Evan Thomas, "Why It’s Time to Worry", in Newsweekk

     America's social harmony has depended at least to some degree on economic growth. It is easier to get along when everyone, more or less, is getting ahead.

2. A pleasing combination of elements, or arrangement of sounds.
3. (music) The academic study of chords.
4. (music) Two or more notes played simultaneously to produce a chord.
5. (music) The relationship between two distinct musical pitches (musical pitches being frequencies of vibration which produce audible sound) played simultaneously.
6. A literary work which brings together or arranges systematically parallel passages of historians respecting the same events, and shows their agreement or consistency.

   a harmony of the Gospels

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

• harmony in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• harmony in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -æl?ti

Etymology

cordial +? -ity

Noun

cordiality (countable and uncountable, plural cordialities)

1. The quality of being cordial.
   • 1839, Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”^[1]

     Upon my entrance, Usher rose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality—of the constrained effort of the ennuyé man of the world.

   • 1930, Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies, New York: Back Bay Books, 1999, Chapter V,

     Adam gave her—the spaniel, not Mrs. Florin—a gentle prod with his foot and a lump of sugar. She licked his shoe with evident cordiality. Adam was not above feeling flattered by friendliness in dogs.

2. A friendly utterance.
   • 1931, E. F. Benson, Mapp and Lucia, Chapter 5,^[2]

     Lucia rivalled these cordialities with equal fervour and about as much sincerity.

   to exchange cordialities with people

Synonyms

• affability, amiability, friendliness, warmth

Anagrams

• radiolytic