hexad

(redirected from hexads)
Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical.

hex·ad

(hĕk′săd′)

A group or series of six.

[Late Latin hexas, hexad-, the number six, from Greek, from hex, six; see s(w)eks in Indo-European roots.]

hex·ad′ic (hĕk-săd′ĭk) adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

hexad

(ˈhɛksæd)

1. (Mathematics) a group or series of six

2. (Mathematics) the number or sum of six

[C17: from Greek hexas, from hex six]

hexˈadic adj

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

hex•ad

(ˈhɛk sæd)

n.

a group or series of six.

[1650–60; < Late Latin hexad-, s. of hexas < Greek hexás=héx six + -as -ad¹]

hex•ad′ic, adj.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun

hexad - the cardinal number that is the sum of five and one

6, Captain Hicks, half a dozen, sestet, sextuplet, sise, six, sixer, VI, sextet

digit, figure - one of the elements that collectively form a system of numeration; "0 and 1 are digits"

Mentioned in ?

References in periodicals archive ?

The coexistence is of major and minor - of Partch's hexadic Otonalities and Utonalities - in that if one tunes Utonality hexads downward from all six tones of the 1/1-Otonality hexad, all the remaining Otonality hexads appear in the process, without needing any independent generative mechanism.(14) In the Diamond the Utonalities run at right angles to the Otonalities - the Otonalities are given (diagonally) from bottom left to top right, and the Utonalities (diagonally) from bottom right to top left.(15)

Changing the metaphor: ratio models of musical pitch in the work of Harry Partch, Ben Johnston, and James Tenney

Partch included the concept in his theoretical exposition the following year, 1931, stimulated - or, by, his own admission, "hastened" - by reading Henry Cowell's discussion of undertones in his book New Musical Resources, which had just been published.(15) In retrospect, it is easy to see that utonalities are implicitly present in the system he had already developed - indeed, they are his "minor" hexads, the complement of the "major" otonalities.