harmonic

comparative more harmonic · superlative most harmonic · alternative obsolete harmonick

1. Pertaining to harmony.
2. Pleasant to hear; harmonious; melodious.

   harmonic twang of leather, horn, and brass.

   1728, [Alexander Pope], “(please specify the page)”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. […], Dublin; London: […] A. Dodd, →OCLC

3. mathematicsUsed to characterize various mathematical entities or relationships supposed to bear some resemblance to musical consonance.

   The harmonic polar line of an inflection point of a cubic curve is the component of the polar conic other than the tangent line.

4. Recurring periodically.
5. human sciencesExhibiting or applying constraints on what vowels (e.g. front/back vowels only) may be found near each other and sometimes in the entire word.
6. Australianist linguisticsOf or relating to a generation an even number of generations distant from a particular person.

   A person is harmonic with respect to members of his own generation and with respect to members of all even-numbered generations counting away from his own (e.g., his grandparents' generation, his grandchildren's generation, etc.).

   1966, Kenneth Hale, Kinship Reflections in Syntax: Some Australian languages

plural harmonics · alternative obsolete harmonick

1. natural sciencesA component frequency of the signal of a wave that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency.
2. entertainmentThe place where, on a bowed string instrument, a note in the harmonic series of a particular string can be played without the fundamental present.
3. mathematicsOne of a class of functions that enter into the development of the potential of a nearly spherical mass due to its attraction.
4. CB radio slangOne's child.

   Games for the harmonics, (children), YL's and XYL's and the OM's, plus free soda for all.

   1967, CQ: the Radio Amateur's Journal, volume 23, numbers 7-12, page 140

   1 more example

   The harmonics (kids, I mean) sometimes failed to recognize me on the rare occasions when I emerged from the shack […]

   1988, Amateur Radio, volume 44, numbers 1-6, page 38