melody

plural melodies

1. A sequence of notes that makes up a musical phrase.

   Alyssa likes to sing melodies while playing the drums.

   2 more examples

   There is a melody upon the Earth as though ten thousand streams all sang together for their homes that they had forsaken in the hills.

   1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], “The Sayings of Slid (whose Soul is by the Sea)”, in The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 15

   Slowly she turned round and faced towards a neat white bungalow, set some way back from the path behind a low hedge of golden privet. No light showed, but someone there was playing the piano. The strange elusiveness of the soft, insistent melody seemed to draw her forward.

   1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 1, in The Subtle Minotaur

   Synonyms: tune

1. A female given name from English.

   Melody, for this, impossibly, was her mother's name, twinkled in a searching manner over the glasses.

   2000, Anne Enright, What Are You Like?, Random House, published 2001, →ISBN, page 150

2. A surname.