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musicology

noun

Simple meaning

The scholarly and scientific study of music.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

myoozihkahluhjee

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

mjuzɪˈkɑlədʒi

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. music

    The scholarly and scientific study of music

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare
Formality
Technical

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: The scholarly and scientific study of music

Used this way, musicology is a specialist 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
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Clinical and technical
Usage feel
Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

  • Music/performance
  • Arts writing
  • Science
  • Academic writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

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.

current musicologyhistorical musicologynew musicologyamerican musicologysystematic musicologylesbian musicologytraditional musicologystudied musicology

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • musicaladjectiveDerived adjective

    Characterized by or capable of producing music.

  • musicallyadverbDerived adverb

    In a musical manner.

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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.