chromatic
Meanings
adj
- Uses relating to colour
- Characterized or caused by, or relating to, colour or hue.
- Brightly coloured; colourful, vivid.
- Having the capacity to separate spectral colours by refraction.
- Relating to colorings of graphs.
- One of three types of tetrachord (the others being the diatonic and enharmonic), with an interval between half and four-fifths of the total interval of a tetrachord.
- Relating to or using notes not belonging to the diatonic scale of the key in which a passage of music is written.
- Moving in semitones.
adj
- Relating to chromatin (a complex of DNA, RNA, and proteins within the cell nucleus out of which chromosomes condense during cell division).
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Borrowed from French chromatique (“chromatic”) or directly from its etymon Latin chrōmaticus, from Ancient Greek χρωματικός (khrōmatikós, “relating to colour; one of the three types of tetrachord in Greek music”), from χρῶμα (khrôma, “colour; pigment; chromatic scale in music; music”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʰer- (“to grind; to rub; to stroke; to remove”), perhaps in the sense of the grinding of pigments) + -τῐκός (-tĭkós, suffix forming adjectives); analysable as chroma + -tic.
Antonyms
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