Word.ws English Dictionary

countersubject

countersubject noun: the secondary melody in contrapuntal music.

Noun

countersubject (plural countersubjects)

  1. The secondary melody in contrapuntal music.
    • In classical music there are, as the analytical programs tell us, first subjects and second subjects, free fantasias, recapitulations, and codas; there are fugues, with counter-subjects, strettos, and pedal points; there are passacaglias on ground basses, canons ad hypodiapente, and other...1902 [1898], [George] Bernard Shaw, The Perfect Wagnerite […] , second edition, London: Grant Richards, page 3

Forms of countersubject

pluralcountersubjects
alternative formcounter-subject

Origin of countersubject

From counter- + subject.

Questions about countersubject

What does countersubject mean?
Countersubject means the secondary melody in contrapuntal music.
What part of speech is countersubject?
Countersubject is a noun.
What is the plural of countersubject?
The plural of countersubject is countersubjects.

Words near countersubject in the dictionary

  1. counterstruggling
  2. counterstudies
  3. counterstudy
  4. counterstyle
  5. counterstyles
  6. countersubject
  7. countersubjects
  8. countersubversion
  9. countersubversive
  10. countersubversives
  11. countersue

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: countersubject (page history and authors). 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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