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Glite Dictionary
🔀 In a mixed way 🎶 With musical counterpoint
contrapuntally

contrapuntally

9.7
In a way that mixes two or more separate parts to make a woven effect
  • adverb
  • /ˌkɒntrəˈpʌntəli/
translation icon : contrapuntísticamente
  • In this artwork, the colors are used contrapuntally to highlight contrasting emotions.

Examples

  • Invention, in this older rhetorical meaning of the word, is the finding and elaboration of arguments, which in the musical realm means the finding of a theme and elaborating it contrapuntally so that all of its possibilities are articulated, expressed, and elaborated.

    Academic text (2000)

  • The composer arranged the melodies of the two pieces contrapuntally to create a rich harmonic texture.

  • Many episodes of the two series serve one another in this contrapuntally ideological way.

    Academic text (1992)

  • This position, contrapuntally, constructs the Red Sticks as savage assailants.

    Academic text (2009)

  • It is because there is a direct connection between the forces and features of the earth and those that produce the body; it is because the earth is already directly inscribed contrapuntally in the body that the body can sing the earth and all its features.

    Blog text (21)

  • The novel's plot unfolds contrapuntally, intertwining the lives of its main characters in unexpected ways.

Surface Forms

contrapuntally positive

Morphology

contrapuntally = contrapuntal (semi-transparent) = contrapuntal + ly

Formed by a regular adjective-to-adverb derivation from 'contrapuntal' but the term is specialised and in broader metaphorical uses the link to musical counterpoint is extended.

Etymology

Contrapuntally comes from the musical word counterpoint, built from contra 'against' and punctum 'point'. Think of two or more story threads or images set 'against' each other and woven together, so arranged contrapuntally means the parts stay independent but create a rich, connected whole.