anacrusis

English

WOTD – 1 January 2012    

Wikipedia

Etymology

Modern Latin, from Ancient Greek ἀνάκρουσις (anakrousis, “pushing up”), from ἀνακρούω (anakrouō, “I push up”), from ἀνά (ana, “up”) + κρούω (krouō, “I strike”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /anəˈkɹuːsɪs/

Noun

Beginning of BWV 736, with an anacrusi shown in red.

Play

File:Anacrusis-bwv736.mid

(file)

anacrusis (plural anacruses)

1. (prosody) An unstressed syllable at the start of a verse.
2. (music) An unstressed note or notes before the first strong beat (or downbeat) of a phrase.
   • 1989, Anthony Burgess, Any Old Iron:

     Then Etheridge poised his baton, jerked an upbeat, and made the violinists speak the low G and A of their anacrusis.

Related terms

• crusis

Translations

(prosody) an unstressed syllable at the start of a verse

• Catalan: anacrusi (ca) f
• Finnish: esitahti (fi), anakruusi (fi)
• German: Auftakt (de) m

• Italian: anacrusi (it) f
• Russian: анакруза (ru) (anakrúza) f 

(music) an unstressed note (or notes) before the first strong beat of a phrase

• Catalan: anacrusi (ca) f
• Dutch: opmaat (nl)
• Finnish: nousutahti (fi)
• French: anacrouse (fr) f
• German: Auftakt (de) m, Anakrusis (de) f

• Italian: anacrusi (it) f
• Portuguese: anacruse (pt)
• Russian: затакт (ru) (zatákt) m 
• Spanish: anacrusa (es) f

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• Japanese: 弱起 (ja) (じゃっき, jakki)
• Portuguese: anacruse (pt)

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Catalan

Noun

anacrusis

1. Plural form of anacrusi