Tuplet

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A group of multiple notes played in a specific rhythmic relationship, often altering the usual division of beats
2. a musical term indicating a specific number of elements grouped together irregularly within a rhythm
3. in mathematics, a formal grouping of elements often representing coordinates or ordered pairs in a set structure

Etymology: A tuplet is a group of notes played in a time span that normally holds fewer of them: three notes squeezed into the space of two, for example. The word's most striking feature is that it is built from the endings of other words rather than from a root of its own. Its model is words such as "quintuplet" and "septuplet", where "-tuplet" marks a group of five or seven, and the pattern was carried over to a group of any number of notes. The same ending links it to "tuple", a term from computing for a fixed sequence of items. The two words share a building block, the "-tuple" element that means "-fold", but they reached English by different routes and differ in meaning.