Antiphony
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Alternate, or responsive singing by a choir split into two parts; a piece sung or chanted in this manner. countable, uncountable
- 2 a verse or song to be chanted or sung in response wordnet
- 3 Alternate, or responsive ideas or opinions; juxtaposition. countable, uncountable
"Besides that Cardan pleases himself with that Antiphonie in Nature, that as the Ostrich being a Bird, yet never shes in the Aire, so this Bird of Paradise should alwayes be in the Aire, and never rest upon the Earth."
- 4 alternate (responsive) singing by a choir in two parts wordnet
- 5 Synonym of apophony (“contrastive vowel modification”). countable, uncountable
"Still another phase of language which interests Professor Orr is that of vowel antiphony in the functional development of language; e.g. the “front-back” vowel sequence (tittle-tattle, et patati et patata, etc.)."
Example
More examples"Besides that Cardan pleases himself with that Antiphonie in Nature, that as the Ostrich being a Bird, yet never shes in the Aire, so this Bird of Paradise should alwayes be in the Aire, and never rest upon the Earth."
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.