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n. pl. mon·o·dies
1. An ode for one voice or actor, as in Greek drama.
2. A poem in which the poet or speaker mourns another's death.
3. Music
a. A style of composition dominated by a single melodic line.
b. A style of composition having a single melodic line; monophony.
c. A composition in either of these styles.

[Late Latin monōdia, from Greek monōidiā : mono-, mono- + aoidē, ōidē, song; see wed- in Indo-European roots.]

mo·nod′ic (mə-nŏd′ĭk), mo·nod′i·cal (-ĭ-kəl) adj.
mo·nod′i·cal·ly adv.
mon′o·dist (mŏn′ə-dĭst) n.


n, pl -dies
1. (Theatre) (in Greek tragedy) an ode sung by a single actor
2. (Poetry) any poem of lament for someone's death
3. (Music, other) music a style of composition consisting of a single vocal part, usually with accompaniment
[C17: via Late Latin from Greek monōidia, from mono- + aeidein to sing]
monodic, moˈnodical adj
moˈnodically adv
ˈmonodist n


(ˈmɒn ə di)

n., pl. -dies.
1. a Greek ode sung by a single voice, as in a tragedy; lament.
2. a poem in which the poet or speaker laments another's death.
a. a musical style in which one melody predominates; homophony.
[1580–90; < Late Latin monōdia < Greek monōidía a solo, monody =monōid(ós) singing alone (see mon-, ode) + -ia -y3]
mo•nod•ic (məˈnɒd ɪk) adj.
mon′o•dist, n.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.monody - music consisting of a single vocal part (usually with accompaniment)monody - music consisting of a single vocal part (usually with accompaniment)
References in classic literature ?
The lips of Chingachgook had so far parted, as to announce that it was the monody of the father.
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
Eggington shows how Steffani's appointment as president highlights the academic nature of the Academy by choosing a composer who, in the minds of academicians, was almost equivalent to the quality of Corelli owing to the reputation of Steffani's vocal chamber duets and their combination of polyphony and monody. Steffani's position in London's educated circles is further highlighted by two biographies being published in his honour in ca.1758 (John Hawkins) and 1779 (Giordano Riccati).
Fairer D (1999) Chatterton's poetic afterlife, 17701794: a context for Coleridge's Monody. In: Groom N, ed.
This period is significant for the emergence of a new style that combined Italian monody with the French courtly love song.
Here Fairer demonstrates how revision to the 1790 "Monody oi1 the Death of Chatterton" mirrored a shift in cultural representation of the young suicide from a dramatic, "manly" figure capable of evoking politically charged ire to a highly sentimentalized and boyish figure prone to engender sympathy and nostalgia.
I would love to be a fly on the wall at a concert given at apalazzo in Monteverdi's day, one that fostered the ideals of the Camerata, so that we could hear exactly how monody was intended to be delivered.
of California, Los Angeles) examines cadences of the falling third, in which notes descend from the third to the first degree of the scale, in Gregorian chant, fourteenth and fifteenth century polyphony, polyphony from Dufay to Palestrina, monody and recitative in the seventeenth century and later, the appoggiatura, and the 4-3-1 figure.
(17) See such terms as "monumental legend" and "oceanic monody" (Isobel Armstrong and Joseph Bristow, eds., Nineteenth-Century Women Poets [Oxford: Oxford Univ.
The neo-Platonic effects of song, particularly associated with monody, are here manifest at all levels - in the subject matter that is intended to evoke a moral response in listeners, in the neo-Platonic descriptions of the efficacy of song put forth in the lyrics, and in the monodic performance implied by the timbre.
Intelligibility of the words' meaning is crucial.(33) Elise Jorgens notes that for many musical humanists, there was "an insistence that the words of the text be fully intelligible; to many, it involved a more direct relationship between the singer and the text."(34) Declamatory songs share characteristics associated with monody, a style emerging from the Florentine Camerata that emphasizes dramatic meaning.(35)
He notes that 'Humanism may often have been used merely as an excuse for some innovation, introduced in fact for quite other reasons', but that, even as a 'mere theoretical pretext', it was an important factor in the success of such innovations.(65) His research constantly leads him to disclaimers; for example: 'The treatment of the modes in musique mesuree, or in early Italian monody is in practice, whatever the theories of the composers may have been, indistinguishable from that of any other contemporary music'.(66) The theorists were confronted by the awkward fact that there exist, in Aristotle, several passages endorsing purely instrumental music among other modes of wordless imitation.