burthen
noun
Simple meaning
Rarely used musical tempo, meaning slow and ponderous.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
burthuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbɝθən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Rarely used musical tempo, meaning slow and ponderous (e.g., moving under a burden); similar to largo.
A section of music with the tempo mark burthen.
A variant of `burden'
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Rarely used musical tempo, meaning slow and ponderous (e.g., moving under a burden); similar to largo.
Used this way, burthen is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Music/performance
- Arts writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Tonnage
Other combinations
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.