octavation

Noun

octavation (plural octavations)

1. Transposition by an octave.
   • OCTAVATION (also called Pitch Control) — Changing the rate of tape speed over the playback head of a tape recorder changes the pitch of the signal being played back. If the speed is doubled, the signal will increase in pitch one octave.1973, George R Neaderhiser, Guidelines for the Development of a Comprehensive Music Curriculum for Elementary Secondary Schools, page unknown
   • A French rondeau from the Roman de la Rose (12th century) first establishes the triad, then turns to the seventh, but leaves it immediately to catch the octave, only to return in haste to the safer, wonted seventh. A similar example of uncertain octavation will be described in the following section...1977, Curt Sachs, edited by Jaap Kunst, The Wellsprings of Music, page 158
2. (rare) Normalization of a numerical ratio by repeated multiplication or division by 2.
   • It may be said that the sex question is both brain stem and pelvic stem in its fourfold octavation with its stabilizing governor, the pituitary body. These consist in coördination and correlation, the sex relation of octavation of voice and pitch.1922, Frank Ebenezer Miller, Vocal Art-Science and Its Application (2nd edition), pages 230 and 240
   • Energy is apparently transmuted by a series of octavations and that these octavations differentiate matter.1923, Medical Review of Reviews, XXIX, page 22
3. (rare) The relationship between two planets that are distant from each other by one eighth of a great circle (45.625 degrees)
   • This octavation will be qualified (and perhaps rendered nil) if on a day when Uranus is well aspected its octave Mercury should be adversely aspected, or vice versa.1947, George Llewellyn, Improved Perpetual Planetary Hour Book (rev. ed.), page 170
4. Conversion (of the expression of a number) from denary to octal notation.
   • The inverse operation, which is termed “decimation,” together with an adequate treatment for the octavation of decimal fractions will be mentioned here without consideration of the details.1949, The American Mathematical Monthly, LVI, page 463
   • The author […] supplied elaborate rules for the use of the octave system and for the reducing of numbers from the decade to the octave system, and the reverse — processes which he called octavation and decimation, respectively.1956, Hugh Jones, edited by Richard Lee Morton, The Present State of Virginia, page 37