non-harmonic
|non-har-mon-ic|
🇺🇸
/ˌnɑn.hɑrˈmɑnɪk/
🇬🇧
/ˌnɒn.hɑːˈmɒnɪk/
not exhibiting harmony
Etymology
'non-harmonic' originates from English, specifically combining the prefix 'non-' (ultimately from Old English 'nān'/'ne' meaning 'not') and 'harmonic' (from Greek 'harmonia' via Latin 'harmonicus'), where 'harmonia' meant 'joining, agreement'.
'harmonic' moved from Greek 'harmonia' into Latin as 'harmonicus', passed through Old French/Medieval Latin forms and entered Middle/Modern English as 'harmonic'; the modern compound 'non-harmonic' was formed in English by adding the productive negative prefix 'non-'.
Initially 'harmonia' meant 'joining' or 'agreement'; over time this developed into senses related to musical harmony and proportional relations, and 'non-harmonic' came to mean 'not exhibiting those harmonic properties'.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Adjective 1
not harmonic; lacking harmony or consonance (especially in music: containing tones that do not fit the harmonic series).
The composer deliberately used non-harmonic tones to create tension in the passage.
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Adjective 2
not a harmonic function or not satisfying the conditions of harmonicity in mathematics/physics (e.g., a function that does not satisfy Laplace's equation) or a signal not composed of integer-multiple frequencies.
The solution turned out to be non-harmonic, so the usual techniques for harmonic functions could not be applied.
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Last updated: 2025/11/14 07:53