Meaning & use
cadent
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Meanings
adjectivecomparableliteraryrare
Having a regular, rhythmic rise and fall, especially in a voice, a poem or a piece of music.
Grammar: Used before a noun: a cadent voice; mainly in careful, literary writing.
Patterns
- a cadent voice
- cadent verse
The poet read in a cadent voice that made every line sound like a song.
The cadent rhythm of the waves put the children to sleep.
Her cadent speech made the old story feel like a ballad.
adjectivebefore a nounarchaic
Falling or dropping down, used in older English for things that fall.
Grammar: Archaic and very rare, used before a noun: cadent leaves.
Patterns
- cadent leaves
The cadent leaves drifted across the garden in autumn.
He watched the cadent rain gather in the gutter.
Common combinations
- cadent voice
- The preacher's cadent voice carried to the back of the hall.
- cadent rhythm
- A cadent rhythm ran through the whole poem.
- cadent verse
- The old ballad is written in cadent verse.
- cadent prose
- Her cadent prose is a pleasure to read aloud.
Synonyms and how they differ
- rhythmic
- Rhythmic is the everyday word for anything with a regular beat, while cadent is a rare literary word that stresses the rise and fall of sound.
- lilting
- Lilting suggests a light, cheerful swing in a voice or tune, whereas cadent is more neutral about mood.
- melodious
- Melodious means pleasant to hear like a tune, and does not focus on the pattern of the beat like cadent.
- measured
- Measured describes a slow, controlled pace, not the musical pattern that cadent suggests.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: cadent or decadent? cadent or cadet?
cadent vs decadent
Decadent means self-indulgent or in moral decline, and it is not related to cadent despite the overlapping letters.
cadent vs cadet
A cadet is a young person training for the military or police, and it is a different word from cadent.
Practice
Which word best describes a speaker whose voice has a pleasing, regular rise and fall?
Choose one answer.
Cadent describes a voice with a regular rhythmic pattern. Careless, candid and cautious describe attitudes, not the sound of a voice.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cadent”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.