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octave
in a sentence

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  • His mouth is closing in on mine, and the way his voice has dropped into some sort of lyrical, godlike octave makes my heart pummel within my chest.†   (source)
  • Then rising an octave like "The Star-Spangled Banner": "God stirred up the holy spirit of a man named Daniel!†   (source)
  • My voice edged up a few octaves.†   (source)
  • French editor Octave Uzanne called it "that Gordian city, so excessive, so satanic."†   (source)
  • A Petrarchan sonnet uses a rhyme scheme that ties the first eight lines (the octave) together, followed by a rhyme scheme that unifies the last six (the sestet).†   (source)
  • Then she brightened again, rising an octave.†   (source)
  • My voice was now an octave higher than Meg's.†   (source)
  • His voice climbed an octave.†   (source)
  • The voice from the radio—it had dropped an octave, altered pitch, slowed and lengthened measurably—was now that of someone's wayward uncle confiding the secrets of his golf game; now it miraculously glided through a tongue twister; now it suddenly sensed great depths of meaning in an ordinary double play.†   (source)
  • I asked, my voice inching up an octave.†   (source)
  • Walter's voice rises by about an octave.†   (source)
  • Damien squeaked, his voice going up about twenty octaves.†   (source)
  • Bridget's voice shoots up another octave, and as I walk away I hear Alex start trying to calm her down, no doubt feeding her lies as quickly as he can come up with them.†   (source)
  • My mother's voice crept up to that scary, shaky octave that always made my own heart instantly start beating faster.†   (source)
  • The children's screams seemed to rise an octave.†   (source)
  • The laps were an attachment to rigorous work, the interval that completes the octave.†   (source)
  • Heloved drinking rice wine and once he'd had one small glass his voice would rise an octave and he would begin to sing tunes from some of the old Beijing Operas.†   (source)
  • My voice rose an octave and cracked.†   (source)
  • I think my voice goes up an octave because I can't believe this, and I feel a decade's worth of resolve shatter.†   (source)
  • He encourages everyone to work hard, have fun, follow the rules, and, dropping an octave, "not end up in my office for the wrong reasons."†   (source)
  • GROUNDED NELLY'S VOICE HAD RISEN SO HIGH that it had left the realm of hysterical about fi ve octaves ago.†   (source)
  • Why didn't you say any of this last night?" he asked, his voice dropping an octave.†   (source)
  • The tones rose through the octave, higher and higher until Tom thought the room might melt at his song.†   (source)
  • Ian said sharply, his voice already several octaves higher, his eyes glaring wildly into the rearview mirror.†   (source)
  • Celia played the piano once and still exercises her hands, unconsciously stretching them two notes beyond an octave.†   (source)
  • Her voice was just half an octave too high.†   (source)
  • Rogak's voice pitched up an octave.†   (source)
  • He has long, lean piano fingers like what Amanda wishes she had so she could stretch her hand across one full octave.†   (source)
  • "Ah-ggah-shih," he calls her, his talking slowed, an octave lowered.†   (source)
  • Peabody's voice rose slightly in octave.†   (source)
  • Of course not; just shifted voder a couple of octaves.†   (source)
  • He put his cigar in his mouth, and, with his right hand, up in the treble keys, he began to play, in octaves, the melody of a song called "The Kinkajou," which, somewhat notably, had shifted into and ostensibly out of popularity before he was born.†   (source)
  • Little farther up, Phillip, Unc Octave, and Aunt Nane.†   (source)
  • On the very first hymn he found he must never for an instant let go of a high note because if he did, his congregation would sink an octave and never come up again.†   (source)
  • He drove without speaking through a thunder-shower that crinkled the windshield and raised the hum of his tires an octave.†   (source)
  • My voice had risen its usual uncontrolled octaves, becoming an epicene mezzo-soprano.†   (source)
  • His voice was deep, yet strangely soft and lilting; like the bush boy's, only several octaves lower.†   (source)
  • This seemed to increase their laughter by several octaves.†   (source)
  • Miss Octave Woodworth, however, had not forgotten.†   (source)
  • His mouth gathers and forms a barbarous O while his fingers walk up straight, unwillingly, three octaves.†   (source)
  • 'Someone's dead,' said Malfoy and his voice seemed to go up an octave as he said it.†   (source)
  • Ralph's breath failed; the note dropped the octave, became a low wubber, was a rush of air.†   (source)
  • In the octave, she creates a static picture of two lovers on the verge of an event.†   (source)
  • "Of course," I replied, my voice an octave high with surprise.†   (source)
  • His voice drops into that lyrical, godlike octave again.†   (source)
  • What is possible in the octave becomes actual in the sestet.†   (source)
  • "Ah," Seth said, his voice cracking up an octave.†   (source)
  • His voice sounded an octave higher than usual.†   (source)
  • In fact, when I yelled "OW!" my voice was an octave higher than usual.†   (source)
  • Amir's voice went up another half octave.†   (source)
  • Her voice jumped a couple of octaves, a marked contrast to Whitney's flat monotone.†   (source)
  • My voice jumped up an octave, sounding strange with the hoarseness.†   (source)
  • The rumbling tone shot up an octave, rose to a forte, and began etching a melody in Tom's skull.†   (source)
  • My bell voice ripped through two octaves and still came out sounding like music.†   (source)
  • I half-shrieked as soon as I could find my voice, shooting through two octaves.†   (source)
  • The tune rose through the octave, piercing the still air with full-bodied chords.†   (source)
  • "She hardly ever speaks any more, don't you know," Miss Octave said.†   (source)
  • "You must go now, yes," Miss Octave said.†   (source)
  • "Oh well, don't you know," Miss Octave began.†   (source)
  • "You needn't go," Miss Octave said, withdrawing her hand from Esther's arm.†   (source)
  • "Won't take a minute," Miss Octave whispered gaily.†   (source)
  • At the front door Miss Octave whispered slyly, "Are the flowers for us, Mr. Cooper?"†   (source)
  • She heard Miss Octave turn a faucet on in the kitchen.†   (source)
  • "A legislator for humanity," Miss Octave said happily, a little like a tyrant.†   (source)
  • "We don't like television, ourselves," Octave said.†   (source)
  • "We used to have visitors," Miss Octave said.†   (source)
  • Suppose it were Miss Octave's senile joke, and Esther sat facing an empty chair, or a china statue?†   (source)
  • Her full name was Octave Thanet Woodworth.†   (source)
  • "I'm pleased to meet you," Miss Octave whispered.†   (source)
  • "You'd vow she was dead," Miss Octave said.†   (source)
  • And poor Miss Octave, poor Miss Editha, poor Ed Burlington, poor Fred, poor Esther.†   (source)
  • "That I'm dating—that we're—it's not true," Alec said, his voice rising and dropping several octaves as he fought to control it.†   (source)
  • She was singing along to the song, her voice an octave higher than the melody, weaving through it with a complicated harmony.†   (source)
  • Two of the waterspouts were close now, their sound a blast of every octave and pitch as they ground their way through the atmosphere.†   (source)
  • I shrieked a few octaves higher.†   (source)
  • He showed her how she could change keys instead of going up an octave for the second verse of "I Love Paris."†   (source)
  • The octave is a single unit of meaning.†   (source)
  • Her rhyme scheme proves to be a little idiosyncratic, since she elects to repeat the same rhymes in both quatrains of the octave: abbaabba.†   (source)
  • Sometimes, especially in the modern and postmodern period, those units slip and slide a little, and the octave doesn't quite contain its meaning, which may, for instance, carry over onto the ninthline, but still, the basic pattern is 8/6.†   (source)
  • My voice shot through three octaves.†   (source)
  • Sam's voice went up an octave.†   (source)
  • Simon's voice went up an octave.†   (source)
  • "A man named Seth Hubbard," Stillman said, an octave higher but still not loud enough to draw the attention of anyone in the office of the Ford County Chancery Clerk.†   (source)
  • Lourdes refilled the mosaic-lined fountain with sweet water and built an aviary in the garden, stocking it with toucans and cockatoos, parrots, a macaw, and canaries that sang in high octaves.†   (source)
  • Oh, take it down an octave, Bella.†   (source)
  • He was the only swordsman I have ever met who used prime and octave—used them, I mean, as readily as sixte and carte.†   (source)
  • Then he took hold of the piano, as if he saw it for the first time in his life, and tested it for strength, hit it down in the bass, played an octave with his elbow, lifted the top, looked inside, and leaned against it with all his might.†   (source)
  • "You seem to have no sense of history at all," I went on rapidly, my voice scaling up an octave, "none at all!†   (source)
  • There were eight children in all that came out of it-all sizes, and all towheaded, as if they might in some way all be kin under that roof, and they had a habit of arranging themselves in the barren yard in a little order, like an octave, and staring out across the street at the rest of the neighborhood-as if to state, in their rude way, "This is us."†   (source)
  • But as soon as Esther Clumly was seated, Miss Octave turned and began shuffling very slowly toward (presumably) the kitchen.†   (source)
  • Octave held Esther Clumly's arm to guide her through the maze of wobbly tables, umbrella stands, lamps, bric-a-brac.†   (source)
  • While Clumly introduced his prisoner to Miss Octave, the prisoner stood meekly squinting at the clutter of old china and silver on the piano table.†   (source)
  • The sky was gray now, the room almost dark, but Octave Woodworth seemed no more aware of the darkness than Clumly's wife would have been.†   (source)
  • He stopped in his tracks, and cunning Miss Octave (as everyone said) whispered, "Don't murder us, young man.†   (source)
  • Miss Octave sat down, not across from her but beside her, as though they were watching at Miss Editha's laying-out.†   (source)
  • Finally, alone, Miss Octave came back.†   (source)
  • Octave Woodworth might appear at the door any minute now, and if she found only Boyle there, standing alone, in handcuffs, who knew?†   (source)
  • Miss Octave seemed to think about it.†   (source)
  • Then--sooner than Esther had expected--Miss Octave's footsteps came shuffling toward the parlor where they sat.†   (source)
  • Behind her Miss Octave whispered clearly, like some Eastern priestess pronouncing the terrible secret, "She'll outlive us all.†   (source)
  • She heard the noises of Miss Octave struggling to drag Miss Editha's wheelchair toward the hallway, where the bathroom was.†   (source)
  • As soon as Esther tasted the tea she knew the reason: Miss Octave had made it with hot water from the faucet.†   (source)
  • Esther smiled and waited with her bony hands folded, nodding politely in the direction toward which Octave Woodworth seemed to have spoken.†   (source)
  • It was toward the end of Miss Thanet's life, Octave had told Esther, when Miss Thanet weighed more than two hundred pounds and had a wooden leg and carried a pistol.†   (source)
  • "She'll bury us all," Octave said.†   (source)
  • " "Oh dear," Miss Octave said.†   (source)
  • It was as if they had given up eating entirely, and perhaps they really had: Octave's hand was as small as a child's, and as meatless and dry as a limp cloth glove with sticks in it.†   (source)
  • Octave Woodworth whispered.†   (source)
  • At last, full of revulsion and grief of a kind large and vague, as if for all humanity (but it was not: she knew what she was grieving for), Esther got up and groped her way ahead of Miss Octave to the bathroom.†   (source)
  • Miss Octave did not miss it.†   (source)
  • Her father the minister had been a radical in his day, although a Baptist, and had greatly admired Octave Thanet's opinions--so much so, in fact, that he had invited her to the house when she was passing through on a lecture tour one time.†   (source)
  • Miss Octave asked them.†   (source)
  • Octave Woodworth said.†   (source)
  • Miss Octave ignored it.†   (source)
  • "Well," Miss Octave said.†   (source)
  • Miss Octave whispered.†   (source)
  • Octave said.†   (source)
  • Miss Octave whispered.†   (source)
  • Miss Octave said, "Yes.†   (source)
  • On the eleventh of July, 1966, Miss Editha Woodworth, who was said to be aged one hundred and eight and who lived with her younger sister Octave, aged ninety-seven, the only surviving descendants of the Reverend Burgess Woodworth, original pastor of the First Baptist Church of Batavia, New York, had been burgled in broad daylight, when both ladies were at home (they were always at home) by "a wild-looking man," as they told the police, who had gained access by knocking out a pane of…†   (source)
  • The humming of the screws overhead dropped an octave and a half, back through wasp and hornet to bumble bee, to cockchafer, to stag-beetle.†   (source)
  • In debate they interrupted their opponents in a tone of voice that was an octave higher, and if their opponents raised their voices to be heard, the Communists raised theirs still higher until shouts rang out over the park.†   (source)
  • [taking up the tune an octave higher in his counter tenor] Sostegno a gloria D'umanita.†   (source)
  • The piece ended with a trill of octaves in the treble and a final deep octave in the bass.†   (source)
  • Dede Antanas is asleep, and so are the Szedvilases, husband and wife, the former snoring in octaves.†   (source)
  • The piece ended with a trill of octaves in the treble and a final deep octave in the bass.†   (source)
  • "But, Mme. Octave, it is not time for your pepsin," Francoise would begin.†   (source)
  • No, no, Madame Octave, they like it well enough.†   (source)
  • I supposed that it must be Mme. Octave who had given it to her.†   (source)
  • "Indeed no, Mme. Octave, my time is not so precious; whoever made our time didn't sell it to us.†   (source)
  • Octave, I will leave you to rest; you look utterly tired out.†   (source)
  • "You may depend upon it, Mme. Octave," replied the Cure.†   (source)
  • His reverence does not wish to disturb Mme. Octave.†   (source)
  • "But it's not five o'clock yet, Mme. Octave, it's only half-past four."†   (source)
  • As my poor Octave used to say, we have forgotten God too often, and He is taking vengeance upon us.†   (source)
  • "Those chords give the fifth and the octave," said Mr. Fogg.†   (source)
  • Indeed, it is time the Lord called me home too; I don't know what has become of my head since I lost my poor Octave.†   (source)
  • He delighted in her stretching out her hands to new octaves now that she found herself beautiful and rich.†   (source)
  • They let their voices sweep in unison to the blessed sustained note of the octave, secure in the belief that heaven was opening before them, that their longings were bathed in the light of eternity.†   (source)
  • She played a dreamy waltz, marking the time with the bass, while with the right hand she "tiddled' in alternate octaves.†   (source)
  • She turned to me, and her voice, dropping an octave lower, filled the room with thrilling scorn: "Do you know why we left Chicago?†   (source)
  • The melodic line that Radames' and Aida's voices insatiably followed, first each alone and then together, its simple, blissful arc playing between tonic and dominant, suspended too long at the keynote, then ascending to a halftone below the octave, fleetingly brushing it, and returning to the fifth—that melody seemed to the listener the most radiant, most admirable music he had ever heard.†   (source)
  • "But I don't mean the big one, Mme. Octave; I mean the little girl, he one who goes to school at Jouy.†   (source)
  • And I've been dreaming that my poor Octave had come back to life, and was trying to make me take a walk every day!"†   (source)
  • "Oh, but, Mme. Octave, I don't think I ought to; you know very well that I don't come here for that!"†   (source)
  • ", twenty times Eulalie would retort with: "Knowing your illness as you do, Mme. Octave, you will live to be a hundred, as Mme. Sazerin said to me only yesterday."†   (source)
  • Mme. Octave, it's high time I left you; I can't afford to stay here amusing myself; look, it's nearly ten o'clock and my fire not lighted yet, and I've still to dress the asparagus."†   (source)
  • …reappeared and, with a smile which was meant to indicate her full participation in the pleasure which, she had no doubt, her tidings would give my aunt, articulating each syllable so as to shew that, in spite of her having to translate them into indirect speech, she was repeating, as a good servant should, the very words which the new visitor had condescended to use, said: "His reverence the Cure would be delighted, enchanted, if Mme. Octave is not resting just now, and could see him.†   (source)
  • And so I no longer used to go into the little sitting-room (now kept shut) of my uncle Adolphe; instead, after hanging about on the outskirts of the back-kitchen until Francoise appeared on its threshold and announced: "I am going to let the kitchen-maid serve the coffee and take up the hot water; it is time I went off to Mme. Octave," I would then decide to go indoors, and would go straight upstairs to my room to read.†   (source)
  • "Once Mme. Goupil has anyone in the house, Mme. Octave, you won't be long in seeing all her folk going in to their luncheon there, for it's not so early as it was," would be the answer, for Francoise, who was anxious to retire downstairs to look after our own meal, was not sorry to leave my aunt with the prospect of such a distraction.†   (source)
  • …"Madame knows everything; Madame is worse than the X-rays" (she pronounced 'x' with an affectation of difficulty and with a smile in deprecation of her, an unlettered woman's, daring to employ a scientific term) "they brought here for Mme. Octave, which see what is in your heart"—and she went off, disturbed that anyone should be caring about her, perhaps anxious that we should not see her in tears: Mamma was the first person who had given her the pleasure of feeling that her peasant…†   (source)
  • My grandfather's cousin—by courtesy my great-aunt—with whom we used to stay, was the mother of that aunt Leonie who, since her husband's (my uncle Octave's) death, had gradually declined to leave, first Combray, then her house in Combray, then her bedroom, and finally her bed; and who now never 'came down,' but lay perpetually in an indefinite condition of grief, physical exhaustion, illness, obsessions, and religious observances.†   (source)
  • No, Mme. Octave.†   (source)
  • …in the outpouring of the spire that her gaze seemed to leap upwards with it; her lips at the same time curving in a friendly smile for the worn old stones of which the setting sun now illumined no more than the topmost pinnacles, which, at the point where they entered that zone of sunlight and were softened and sweetened by it, seemed to have mounted suddenly far higher, to have become truly remote, like a song whose singer breaks into falsetto, an octave above the accompanying air.†   (source)
  • Then they were silenced; heralded by the waving tremolo of the violin-part, which formed a bristling bodyguard of sound two octaves above it—and as in a mountainous country, against the seeming immobility of a vertically falling torrent, one may distinguish, two hundred feet below, the tiny form of a woman walking in the valley—the little phrase had just appeared, distant but graceful, protected by the long, gradual unfurling of its transparent, incessant and sonorous curtain.†   (source)
  • It was the book she was accustomed to lay open before her on special occasions,—on wet Sunday mornings, or when she heard of a death in the family, or when, as in this case, her quarrel with Mr. Glegg had been set an octave higher than usual.†   (source)
  • There were continual outbursts, melodies, unexpected cadences, then simple phrases strewn with aerial and hissing notes; then floods of scales which would have put a nightingale to rout, but in which harmony was always present; then soft modulations of octaves which rose and fell, like the bosom of the young singer.†   (source)
  • But as she ain't here; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I'll not only be obliged to you, but it'll do you more credit," says Mr. Bucket.†   (source)
  • Then, without circumlocution or apology, first pronounced the word "Standish," and placing the unknown engine, already described, to his mouth, from which he drew a high, shrill sound, that was followed by an octave below, from his own voice, he commenced singing the following words, in full, sweet, and melodious tones, that set the music, the poetry, and even the uneasy motion of his ill-trained beast at defiance; "How good it is, O see, And how it pleaseth well, Together e'en in…†   (source)
  • But when he had set them to swinging, when he felt that cluster of bells moving under his hand, when he saw, for he did not hear it, the palpitating octave ascend and descend that sonorous scale, like a bird hopping from branch to branch; when the demon Music, that demon who shakes a sparkling bundle of strette, trills and arpeggios, had taken possession of the poor deaf man, he became happy once more, he forgot everything, and his heart expanding, made his face beam.†   (source)
  • The mere concord of octaves was a delight to Maggie, and she would often take up a book of studies rather than any melody, that she might taste more keenly by abstraction the more primitive sensation of intervals.†   (source)
  • You can follow the dialogue, by turns grave and shrill, of the treble and the bass; you can see the octaves leap from one tower to another; you watch them spring forth, winged, light, and whistling, from the silver bell, to fall, broken and limping from the bell of wood; you admire in their midst the rich gamut which incessantly ascends and re-ascends the seven bells of Saint-Eustache; you see light and rapid notes running across it, executing three or four luminous zigzags, and…†   (source)
  • …strange, Underne, - A.M., Ungoodly, rudely, Unhappy, unlucky, Unhilled, uncovered, Unr the, scarcely, Unsicker, unstable, Unwimpled, uncovered, Unwrast, untwisted, unbound, Upright, flat on the back, Up-so-down, upside down, Ure, usage, Utas, octave of a festival, Utterance, uttermost, Varlet, servant, Venery, hunting, Ven ails, breathing holes, Villain, man of low birth, Visors, the perforated parts of helmets, Voided, slipped away from, Wagging, shaking, Waited, watched, Waits,…†   (source)
  • Bloom wound a skein round four forkfingers, stretched it, relaxed, and wound it round his troubled double, fourfold, in octave, gyved them fast.†   (source)
  • The octave.†   (source)
  • If I could only find out about octaves.†   (source)
  • To which the devil, stopping the cart, answered quietly, "Senor, we are players of Angulo el Malo's company; we have been acting the play of 'The Cortes of Death' this morning, which is the octave of Corpus Christi, in a village behind that hill, and we have to act it this afternoon in that village which you can see from this; and as it is so near, and to save the trouble of undressing and dressing again, we go in the costumes in which we perform.†   (source)
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