figured bass
noun
Simple meaning
A bass part written out in full and accompanied by numbers to indicate the chords to be played.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
figyerdbasSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfɪɡjɚdˈbæs
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
music
A bass part written out in full and accompanied by numbers to indicate the chords to be played
music
A musical notation in which intervals, chords and harmonizations are indicated by numbers written below a given bass note.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A bass part written out in full and accompanied by numbers to indicate the chords to be played
Used this way, figured bass is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- 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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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.