chordless

English

Etymology

From chord +‎ -less.

Adjective

chordless (not comparable)

(graph theory) Lacking chords.
(music) Not playing chords; silent or playing one note at a time.
- 2008, Reginald Menville, Douglas Menville, Ancient Hauntings, page 119:
  But a profound melancholy had taken possession of Franz, the two hardly exchanged a word, the violin hung mute, chordless, full of dust, in its habitual place .
- 2013, Henry T. Sampson, Blacks in Blackface: A Sourcebook on Early Black Musical Shows, page 285:
  It is a chordless affair, because it is out of commission .
(music) Without chords; involving one note at a time or dissonant combinations.
- 2007, Jason Murk, Tokharian Tales, page 96:
  A boat slowly drifts under the bridge and out to sea, and someone inside it plays an untuned piano with a slow chordless melody.
- 2009, Waldo E. Martin, No Coward Soldiers: Black Cultural Politics in Postwar America, page 62:
  Earlier work like the atonal music of pianist Sun Ra and bassist Charles Mingus as well as the chordless music of Coleman and Taylor foreshadowed free jazz.
- 2014, Nick Finzer, Get Ahead!, page 81:
  Nick's current projects include his sextet feature music from "Exposition", a chordless trio that performs regularly at Bar Next Door, a two-trombone duo with fellow Juilliard alumnus Joe McDonough, and freelancing with various ensembles and shows around the city.
(figurative) Without synergy or harmonious combinations; One thing at a time.
- 1908, Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts:
  Why the All-mover, Why the All-prover Ever urges on and measure out the chordless chime of things.
- 2020, Gregory Tate, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and the Physical Sciences:
  Hardy, though, considers it incapable of resolution: for him, nature as defined by physical science is simultaneously rhythmic and chordless, measurable and inexact, deterministic and unknowable.

Derived terms

chordlessness