(v. i.) Originally, a double song; a melody or counterpoint sung above the plain song of the tenor; a variation of an air; a variation by ornament of the main subject or plain song.
(v. i.) The upper voice in part music.
(v. i.) The canto, cantus, or soprano voice; the treble.
(v. i.) A discourse formed on its theme, like variations on a musical air; a comment or comments.
(v. i.) To sing a variation or accomplishment.
(v. i.) To comment freely; to discourse with fullness and particularity; to discourse at large.
Example Sentences:
(1) Tony Blair added his characteristic descant, adding " We have imbibed deeply of the Olympic spirit … in throwing timidity to the winds we have rediscovered a spirit that is our own ".
(2) In a group of cases in which the symptoms had lasted a few months only a displacement towards high frequencies ("descant" displacement) was revealed.
(3) Hyperbolic”, sings George, while his friend David does descant, and the massed bands of Fleet Street march into battle.
(4) Yet Ukip – from the very beginning – played a racist descant on top of this tune of justifiable grievances.
(5) And yet there's a descant in Perth to the major-key optimism that has marked every SNP conference in the last few years.
(6) It will certainly bring the contest to succeed Mr Cameron closer – that is the loud descant to everything that is happening among the Tories at Westminster at the moment, as Mr Johnson’s antics demonstrate.
(7) Vocal chords will be lubricated with mulled wine and those attempting the dog-whistle Ding Dong descant would do well to consult the pub’s superior malt whisky collection in advance.
(8) Unnoticed by anyone, he maintains a gloomy descant ("A dollar is still a lot of money"; "I've suffered from depression all my life"; "I am dubious") to their falsely cheerful exchanges.
(9) That's why the opening of the Hockney show has been taking place to a not particularly subtle descant of propaganda and provocation from the great man himself.
(10) Indeed, Rona Fairhead, the current chair and once a favoured contributor to George Osborne’s Treasury deliberations, seems as miffed as anyone, while Sir Christopher Bland and Sir Michael Lyons sing transparency’s descant at the back of the chorus.
Theme
Definition:
(n.) A subject or topic on which a person writes or speaks; a proposition for discussion or argument; a text.
(n.) Discourse on a certain subject.
(n.) A composition or essay required of a pupil.
(n.) A noun or verb, not modified by inflections; also, that part of a noun or verb which remains unchanged (except by euphonic variations) in declension or conjugation; stem.
(n.) That by means of which a thing is done; means; instrument.
(n.) The leading subject of a composition or a movement.
Example Sentences:
(1) A world conference in Edinburgh during August 1988 will have the theme.
(2) That, roughly, was the theme of the Wednesday Play, Cathy Come Home, (BBC1) directed by Kenneth Loach, produced by Tony Garnett.
(3) as well as nauseatingly hipster titbits – "They came up with the perfect theme (and coined a new term!
(4) Sometimes it can seem as if the history of the City is the history of its crises and disasters, from the banking crisis of 1825 (which saw undercapitalised banks collapse – perhaps the closest historic parallel to the contemporary credit crunch), through the Spanish panic of 1835, the railway bust of 1837, the crash of Overend Gurney, the Kaffir boom, the Westralian boom, the Marconi scandal, and so on and on – a theme with endless variations.
(5) By no means is this a new theme, but it has taken on an added sharpness and urgency after the conferences.
(6) An obsessional artist who was an enemy of all institutions, cinematic as well as social, and whose principal theme was intolerance, he invariably gets delivered to us today by institutions - most recently the National Film Theatre, which starts a Dreyer retrospective this month - that can't always be counted on to represent him in all his complexity.
(7) Read more Clinton spoke before more than a thousand supporters on Saturday at a launch event for “Women for Hillary” in New Hampshire, touching upon many of the familiar themes of her presidential campaign – equal pay for women, paid family leave, raising the minimum wage.
(8) The Christmas theme doesn't end there; "America's Christmas Hometown" also has Santa's Candy Castle, a red-brick building with turrets that was built by the Curtiss Candy Company in the 1930s and sells gourmet candy canes in abundance.
(9) Similar paradoxes bedevilled all the other chief themes.
(10) Synthesis and discussion is focused on five major areas in which gerontological continuity and change are evidenced: 1) transformation of basic themes over time; 2) gerontology's identity crisis; 3) the social ideology of gerontology; 4) evolution and refinement of gerontological ideas and methods; and 5) temporal frameworks.
(11) A key theme is expected to be that early intervention at every stage of life can prevent society having to continue "paying for the costs of failure".
(12) One constant theme is the wish for the Dalai Lama to return."
(13) The national anthems Nothing to say about the Indian anthem, but the New Zealand one sounds like the theme tune for an 1960s ATV variety spectacular.
(14) Ever since the ex-PD leader Walter Veltroni started praising President Kennedy as a way to jettison communism, this has been an abiding theme, manifesting itself institutionally in the desperate attempt to engineer a US-style two-party system through breathtakingly inept electoral reforms – the latest one, the " Porcellum " (after porcello, swine), was behind the impasse earlier this year.
(15) Ladybird: I’m Ready to Spell has a space theme, and is based on the phonics that kids will be learning in their first years at school.
(16) Bleak jokes and cartoons have been circulating for weeks in the anti-Assad camp on the theme of barrel bombs serving as ballot boxes.
(17) Redesigning the dream was identified as the integrative theme in the substantive theory that described how family members gradually modify their beliefs about organ transplantation and develop attitudes and beliefs to meet the challenge of living with continual unpredictability.
(18) Oil operators, large and small, are very keen to address the key themes of the waste hierarchy.
(19) And they kept coming … the hilarious Octodad: Dadliest Catch , the chilling psychological horror game Daylight , which again, uses procedural generation to create new environments (procedural content is another next-gen theme); and Galak-Z from 17bit Studios, described as an AI and physics-driven open-world action game.
(20) Cross-sectional as well as longitudinal comparisons indicated that the subjective sexual arousal elicited during fantasy depicting specific themes was stable across the menstrual cycle.