transposition
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Playing in a different key from the key intended.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
transpuhzishuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
tɹænspəˈzɪʃən
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
Playing in a different key from the key intended; moving the pitch of a piece of music upwards or downwards
music
A shift of a piece of music to a different musical key by adjusting all the notes of the work equally either up or down in pitch.
especially mathematics
The act or process of transposing or interchanging.
chess
A sequence of moves resulting in a position that may also be reached by another, more common sequence.
verb
To transpose
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Playing in a different key from the key intended; moving the pitch of a piece of music upwards or downwards
Used this way, transposition 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.
More ways to use transposition
- “He wrote a textbook on the electrical effects of transposition.”noun
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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.
The interchange of each row of a square matrix with the corresponding column.
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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.