Meaning & use
Breve
Last updated
In music, a note equal in duration to two whole notes (also called a "double whole note"); in phonetics and spelling, a curved diacritical mark (˘) placed over a vowel to show it is short.
See it in a sentence
The breve above the "a" in the pronunciation guide shows it should be pronounced short.
Breves are rarely used in modern musical notation outside of early music transcriptions.
A note on using this word
"Breve" comes from the Latin word for "short," which seems paradoxical for the long musical note but makes sense for the phonetic mark, which denotes a short vowel sound.
Make it your own
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