diminished seventh
diminished seventh noun: a musical interval equivalent to narrowing a minor seventh by one chromatic semitone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it consists of nine semitones and spans seven degrees of the diatonic scale, is one semitone narrower than a minor seventh, and is enharmonically equivalent to a major sixth.
Noun
diminished seventh (plural diminished sevenths)
- A musical interval equivalent to narrowing a minor seventh by one chromatic semitone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it consists of nine semitones and spans seven degrees of the diatonic scale, is one semitone narrower than a minor seventh, and is enharmonically equivalent to a major sixth.
Forms of diminished seventh
| plural | diminished sevenths |
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Questions about diminished seventh
- What does diminished seventh mean?
- Diminished seventh means a musical interval equivalent to narrowing a minor seventh by one chromatic semitone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, it consists of nine semitones and spans seven degrees of the diatonic scale, is one semitone narrower than a minor seventh, and is enharmonically equivalent to a major sixth.
- What part of speech is diminished seventh?
- Diminished seventh is a noun.
- What is the plural of diminished seventh?
- The plural of diminished seventh is diminished sevenths.
Words near diminished seventh in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: diminished seventh (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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Cite this entry: “diminished seventh.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/diminished_seventh. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.