polyphonic
adjective
Simple meaning
Having two or more phonetic values.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pahlihfahnikSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pɑlɪˈfɑnɪk
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.
adjective
music
Having two or more phonetic values
music
Having two or more independent but harmonically related melodic parts sounding together
music
Having two or more independent but harmonic melodies.
of an electronic device
Able to play more than one musical note at the same time.
Of or relating to or characterized by polyphony
of a text
Capable of being read in more than one way.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Having two or more phonetic values
Used this way, polyphonic is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a grammar or language-study use: it describes how language works, so it appears in teaching and reference writing.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Formal
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
Comfortable in writing and prepared speech; in casual conversation a shorter everyday word usually sounds more natural.
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.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Music arranged in parts for several voices or instruments.
A letter that has two or more pronunciations.
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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.