UNISON

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does unison mean? 

• UNISON (noun)
  The noun UNISON has 3 senses:

1. corresponding exactly

2. occurring together or simultaneously

3. (music) two or more sounds or tones at the same pitch or in octaves

  Familiarity information: UNISON used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNISON (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Corresponding exactly

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

marching in unison

Hypernyms ("unison" is a kind of...):

accord; agreement (harmony of people's opinions or actions or characters)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Occurring together or simultaneously

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

the two spoke in unison

Hypernyms ("unison" is a kind of...):

co-occurrence; coincidence; concurrence; conjunction (the temporal property of two things happening at the same time)

Sense 3

Meaning:

(music) two or more sounds or tones at the same pitch or in octaves

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

singing in unison

Hypernyms ("unison" is a kind of...):

sound (the particular auditory effect produced by a given cause)

Domain category:

music (an artistic form of auditory communication incorporating instrumental or vocal tones in a structured and continuous manner)

 Context examples 

They used the data to identify which parts of the brain worked in unison.

(Daydreaming Is Good: It Means You're Smart, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

For a time White Fang growled in unison with him, a correspondence of rhythm being established between growl and voice.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

These jerking movements were in unison with the recurrent spasms that attacked the throat, each spasm severer and more intense than the preceding one.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

As it passed, Wolf Larsen began to speak, the bare-headed men swaying in unison, to the heave and lunge of the deck.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

A grip of the hand, the tightening of an arm over the shoulder, a sob in unison, are expressions of sympathy dear to a man's heart.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Every thing declared it; his own attentions, his father's hints, his mother-in-law's guarded silence; it was all in unison; words, conduct, discretion, and indiscretion, told the same story.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The cilia beat in unison (about 1,000 strokes per minute) and in a wave-like fashion, thereby propelling mucus and entrapped foreign material toward the oropharynx for expectoration or swallowing.

(Ciliated Bronchial Epithelial Cell, NCI Thesaurus)

For such particulars, stated on such authority, Elinor could not withhold her credit; nor was she disposed to it, for the circumstance was in perfect unison with what she had heard and seen herself.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

With the exception, perhaps, of Admiral and Mrs Croft, who seemed particularly attached and happy, (Anne could allow no other exceptions even among the married couples), there could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to the figure) went backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and fro; while a most gigantic bonnet rocked, in unison with it, upon the wall.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)