Word.ws English Dictionary

syntonic comma

syntonic comma noun: a small comma-type interval between two musical notes, equal to the frequency ratio 81:80 (= 1.0125) or around 21.51 cents. It often manifests itself as the difference between the Pythagorean major third of 81:64 and the classic major third of 5:4, between the Pythagorean minor third of 32:27 and the classic minor third of 6:5, and between the "major whole tone" of 9:8 and "minor whole tone" of 10:9.

Noun

syntonic comma (plural syntonic commas)

  1. A small comma-type interval between two musical notes, equal to the frequency ratio 81:80 (= 1.0125) or around 21.51 cents. It often manifests itself as the difference between the Pythagorean major third of 81:64 and the classic major third of 5:4, between the Pythagorean minor third of 32:27 and the classic minor third of 6:5, and between the "major whole tone" of 9:8 and "minor whole tone" of 10:9.

Synonyms of syntonic comma

Forms of syntonic comma

pluralsyntonic commas

Questions about syntonic comma

What does syntonic comma mean?
Syntonic comma means a small comma-type interval between two musical notes, equal to the frequency ratio 81:80 (= 1.0125) or around 21.51 cents. It often manifests itself as the difference between the Pythagorean major third of 81:64 and the classic major third of 5:4, between the Pythagorean minor third of 32:27 and the classic minor third of 6:5, and between the "major whole tone" of 9:8 and "minor whole tone" of 10:9.
What part of speech is syntonic comma?
Syntonic comma is a noun.
What is the plural of syntonic comma?
The plural of syntonic comma is syntonic commas.

Words near syntonic comma in the dictionary

  1. syntocinon
  2. syntomic
  3. syntone
  4. syntones
  5. syntonic
  6. syntonic comma
  7. syntonic commas
  8. syntonical
  9. syntonically
  10. syntonies
  11. syntonin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: syntonic comma (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “syntonic comma.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/syntonic_comma. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.