Octave

How to spell octave

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce octave

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does octave mean?

1. nounThe interval between one musical note and another with double or half its frequency, spanning eight notes of a scale.

Octave in a sentence

• The singer struggled to reach the high note an octave above the melody.

• Each string was tuned exactly one octave lower than the last.

Where does octave come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin octavus, meaning 'eighth', which was built directly on octo, the Latin word for 'eight'. In the Middle Ages the feminine form octava came to mean an 'eighth day', specifically the period of eight days following a church festival, and it entered English in this religious sense before the 1300s through Old French. The musical meaning grew from counting: starting on one note and rising through the scale, the eighth tone sounds like a higher version of the first, so the span between them was named for that count of eight. The same octo root sits inside everyday words such as 'October' (originally the eighth month of the old Roman calendar) and 'octopus' with its eight arms. Because the ending sounds like a flat '-iv', writers sometimes hesitate over the silent-looking '-ave' spelling, which is simply the worn-down Latin octava.

How the word is built

• oct- (from Latin octo: eight)
• -ave (from Latin octava: eighth)