cadence
Syllables: cad·ence/ˈkeɪ̯dəns/
cadence noun: the act or state of declining or sinking.
Noun
cadence (countable and uncountable, plural cadences)
- The act or state of declining or sinking.
- Now was the sun in western cadence low.1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
- The measure or beat of movement.
- Getting into a good jigging rhythm means making short quick jerks in a regular cadence that might average about one jerk every 1.5 to 2 seconds.1993, Ken Schultz, “Terror of the deep”, in Field and Stream, volume 98, number 5, page 102
- Balanced, rhythmic flow.
- You find not the apostrophas, and so miss the accent:
let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified;
but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy,
caret.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]... - Night has now passed in the Saudi desert and as we hear from Nightline correspondent Forrest Sawyer, the normal cadence of life at the front is about to change.1991 December 2, “At the Saudi-Kuwaiti Border”, in ABC Nightline
- You find not the apostrophas, and so miss the accent:
- The general inflection or modulation of the voice, or of any sound.
- Blustering winds, which all night long / Had roused the sea, now with hoarse cadence lull / Seafaring men o'erwatched.1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
- The accents […] were in passion's tenderest cadence.1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown...
- A progression of at least two chords which conclude a piece of music, section or musical phrases within it. Sometimes referred to analogously as musical punctuation.
- Synonyms:
- clausula
- A cadenza, or closing embellishment; a pause before the end of a strain, which the performer may fill with a flight of fancy.
- A fall in inflection of a speaker’s voice, such as at the end of a sentence.
- A dance move which ends a phrase.
- The cadence in a galliard step refers to the final leap in a cinquepace sequence.
- The rhythm and sequence of a series of actions.
- The number of steps per minute.
- The number of revolutions per minute of the cranks or pedals of a bicycle.
- A chant that is sung by military personnel while running or marching; a jody call.
- call cadence
Show 4 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
- Cadency.
- Harmony and proportion of movement, as in a well-managed horse.
- The number of strides per second of a racehorse, measured when the same foot/hoof strikes the ground
- The frequency of regular product releases.
- In this third case, releasing more frequently, the PSI cadence becomes a planning cadence, rather than a release cadence.2010 12, Dean Leffingwell, Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise, Addison-Wesley, →ISBN, page 317
- We recommend aiming for a release cadence of no more than six months, with a goal of getting it down to three months or shorter.2012, Scott Ambler, Mark Lines, Disciplined Agile Delivery: A Practitioner's Guide to Agile Software Delivery in the Enterprise, IBM Press, page 227
Verb
cadence (third-person singular simple present cadences, present participle cadencing, simple past and past participle cadenced)
- To give a cadence to.
- there was besides, in an already dominating and growing element, a motive that was stronger and more enduring than enthusiasm —an implacable antagonism which acted side by side with the cause of the Union as a perpetual impelling force against the social conditions of the South, controlling the...1897, Don Carlos Buell, “Why the Confederacy Failed”, in The Century, volume 53
- In this march to the City of the Dead," scores upon scores of the best musical organizations of the nation were in line, whose funeral dirges cadenced' the great wail of a bereft people.1910, Publication: Illinois State Historical Society, Illinois State Historical Library, number 14, page 182
- To give structure to.
- It was the Exile, however, which cadenced the rhythm of Jewish existence1966, Joseph Leon Blau, Modern varieties of Judaism, page 158
- They are neither mentioned specifically in the Constitution, nor in the Federalist Papers that cadenced the nationalist debates.2000, David C. Hammack, Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States, page 256
Proper noun capitalized: Cadence
Cadence
- A female given name from English.
cadence meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu
cadence in Tamil
- வண்ணம், இலயப் போக்கு, மெல்லிசை ஏற்றத்தாழ்வு, அளவொத்த ஓசை நடை, குரலின் மென்னயத்தளர்வு இறக்கம், இசையின் கடைநிலையதிர்வு
cadence in Urdu
- آہنگ, قافیہ, زیرو بم
cadence in Bengali
- সুর, কণ্ঠের ওঠানামার ছন্দ, সুরের সমাপ্তি
cadence in Telugu
- కేడెన్స్
More languagesFewer languages
- cadence in Malayalam
- താളം, ലയം, താളക്രമം, കാലം
- cadence in Kannada
- ಲಯಬದ್ಧವಾದ ಏರಿಳಿತ, ಸ್ವರಗತಿ, ಲಯ, ಸ್ವರಾವರೋಹಣ
- cadence in Gujarati
- કેડેન્સ, કેડન્સ
- cadence in Nepali
- क्याडेन्स
- cadence in Tagalog
- ragsak
- cadence in Indonesian
- kadensa
Examples of cadence in a sentence
- The cadence of Raimey's voice is pure Down-Easter Maine1991 December 30, David Holmstrom, “Raimey: A Breath of Fresh Ayah”, in Christian Science Monitor:
- This happens when the installation cadence in production is slower than the release cadence of the development teams.2016 9, Jaokim Verona, Michael Duffy, Paul Swartout, Learning DevOps: Continuously Develop Better Software, Packt Publishing, →ISBN, page...
Synonyms of cadence
Forms of cadence
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | cadences |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | cadences |
| present participle | cadencing |
| past participle | cadenced |
| past | cadenced |
Origin of cadence
Borrowed from Middle French cadence, from Old Italian cadenza (“conclusion of a phrase of music”), from Latin *cadentia (literally “a falling”), form of cadēns, the present participle of cadō (“to fall, to cease”). The Latin verb is inherited, via Proto-Italic *kadō, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱad-e- (“to fall”, thematic present). Doublet of cadenza and chance.
From the word cadence.
Words formed from cadence
Phrases with cadence
- drum cadence
- half cadence
- jody cadence
- ring cadence
- plagal cadence
- English cadence
- perfect cadence
- Phrygian cadence
- authentic cadence
- deceptive cadence
- Andalusian cadence
- perfect authentic cadence
1 more phrasesFewer phrases
Questions about cadence
- What does cadence mean?
- Cadence means the act or state of declining or sinking.
- What is cadence in Tamil?
- Cadence in Tamil is வண்ணம், இலயப் போக்கு, மெல்லிசை ஏற்றத்தாழ்வு. See Cadence meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use cadence in a sentence?
- The cadence of Raimey's voice is pure Down-Easter Maine
- What part of speech is cadence?
- Cadence can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce cadence?
- Cadence is pronounced /ˈkeɪ̯dəns/.
- What is the plural of cadence?
- The plural of cadence is cadences.
Words near cadence in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cadence (page history and authors); Cadence (page history and authors); cadence (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cadence (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cadence (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cadence (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cadence (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); cadence (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cadence (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cadence (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cadence.wav.
Cite this entry: “cadence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cadence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.