How to Use harmonic in a Sentence

harmonic

1 of 2 adjective
  • The harmonic chorus is like a warm balm on a cold winter’s night.
    — Karla Pope, Good Housekeeping, 27 Nov. 2022
  • Something else to notice is there are some pretty abrupt harmonic shifts in there.
    — The New York Times, New York Times, 27 Oct. 2022
  • Corea’s music, even for small groups, is rich with melodic and harmonic detail.
    — George Varga, sandiegouniontribune.com, 17 Mar. 2018
  • The dish ping pongs between creamy sesame notes and bright acidity, harmonic and distinct at once.
    — Mark Kurlyandchik, Detroit Free Press, 4 Dec. 2019
  • Most of the new pieces were disarmingly simple, at least in harmonic terms.
    — Allan Kozinn, WSJ, 21 July 2021
  • From a design standpoint, patterns can also help our homes feel harmonic.
    — Kate Morgan, WSJ, 29 Sep. 2023
  • That was one of those songs that came at the peak of our harmonic experimentation with rock and blues.
    — Devon Ivie, Vulture, 2 Feb. 2021
  • His harmonic language has sustained a great deal of popular and an even greater deal of show music.
    — Detroit Free Press, 27 Nov. 2021
  • The third movement supplied pastoral effects with oboe and harmonic flute stops.
    — Dallas News, 15 Feb. 2023
  • In the first etude, strings play on open strings, which creates a sense of harmonic healing by leaving nature well enough alone.
    — Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 3 June 2026
  • Kepler’s harmonic law acts as a scale to weigh celestial bodies.
    — Andrej Prša, Space.com, 4 Aug. 2025
  • These modes are referred to as a damped harmonic oscillator.
    — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 15 Mar. 2026
  • At the other end is an actuator arm that's connected to a harmonic drive.
    — Eric Bangeman, Ars Technica, 8 Nov. 2018
  • In this case, the two notes’ harmonic overtones overlap, and most people like listening to the sound as a result.
    — Adam Kovac, Scientific American, 10 June 2026
  • Plus, the wonder of seeing a spinning disc with grooves producing harmonic sound never fades.
    — Julian Chokkattu, Wired, 30 Dec. 2020
  • The dressing does need to bring it all together with harmonic sweetness and acidity.
    — Bonnie S. Benwick, charlotteobserver, 1 May 2018
  • But then, what are pop songs anyway, beyond small miracles built from dreams, sweat and harmonic principles?
    — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 12 Aug. 2021
  • The massage also uses traditional shawls and harmonic movements to free the body of stress from head to toe.
    — Patricia Doherty, Travel + Leisure, 12 Mar. 2026
  • Spruce is a stiff, light-weight, bright sounding wood with complex harmonic overtones and robust sound projection.
    — Henry Robertson, Popular Mechanics, 22 Jan. 2019
  • There’s almost always rapid motion, even when the string quartet is proceeding at a slower harmonic pace.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Aug. 2022
  • Rich passages of harmonic concord suddenly split into straying sonorities, as though pulled apart by a prism.
    — Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post, 11 Jan. 2024
  • Since that time, he’s been appreciated as a master of harmonic surprise.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Sep. 2019
  • The singers’ buchi drone formed the core of the music’s harmonic language, which relied mostly on unisons, major seconds, and minor thirds.
    — Emma Madden, Pitchfork, 21 Dec. 2025
  • Their approach is one that highlights the harmonic and rhythmic complexities of the music.
    — John Adamian, courant.com, 22 Sep. 2019
  • To this, Cole added a feel for the blues that Hines lacked, plus a forward-looking harmonic vocabulary all his own.
    — Terry Teachout, WSJ, 14 Aug. 2020
  • And just as those vortexes are stable, so too are the vibrations produced by them, creating harmonic tremor.
    — Connor Lynch, Discover Magazine, 24 Jan. 2022
  • The structural and harmonic rigor of Bach is alien to Balter’s unsettled sound world.
    — John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 29 Apr. 2018
  • As harmonic distortion increases or the phase angle of the current starts to lead or lag the voltage, the power factor starts to drop.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 21 Nov. 2019
  • For places that did not have complete logs, Thomson designed both an improved tide gauge and a tidal harmonic analyzer.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 2 June 2024
  • Thus, the harmonic and rhythmic weight is carried equally by both musicians, lending this music rare balance.
    — Larry Blumenfeld, WSJ, 26 Jan. 2019

harmonic

2 of 2 noun
  • This is achieved with quantum harmonics played in headphones.
    — Spencer Whaley, Forbes.com, 21 Aug. 2025
  • The bright sounds of a harmonic can be heard logging into Zoom.
    — Nick Romano, EW.com, 12 Sep. 2022
  • There appear, through some weird alchemy of harmonics, phantom instruments.
    — Geoff Dyer, New York Times, 4 Oct. 2017
  • Steven is looking for transcendence in the just-right harmonic resolution; his wife finds it in a Windex bottle.
    — Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 3 Oct. 2023
  • Being able to show Jeremy how to play harmonic was really interesting and cool.
    — Gary Graff, Billboard, 25 Oct. 2025
  • Much of the record’s action happens in the high end, where bright, digital harmonics fizz and glisten, dust motes in a strip-mall crystal emporium.
    — Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork, 14 Jan. 2026
  • Jerry once told me that the harmonics Bob created became an inspiration for his own solos.
    — Emily Zemler, Rolling Stone, 12 Jan. 2026
  • The sparse textures permit him to deploy his scale over long stretches without harmonic monotony, but there are a limited number of timbral changes to be rung from that combo.
    — Christian Hertzog, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 June 2023
  • The piece is a technical tour de force for the solo violin, including the slippery sounds of the player slurring through passages of harmonics.
    — Elaine Schmidt, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2 Feb. 2018
  • The fundamental frequency and harmonics are far less well defined, which indicates audio distortion and a much rougher tone to the sound.
    — Jeff Kao and Jack Gillum, ProPublica, 25 June 2019
  • It was scored for contrabass, and contrasted vigorous open string strums with ethereal harmonics played all the way below the fingerboard.
    — Christian Hertzog, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Feb. 2023
  • The exhaust soundtrack has been engineered to have the bass-heavy harmonics that buyers reportedly associate with grand tourers.
    — Mike Duff, Car and Driver, 15 May 2019
  • Muted guitars twirl in curlicued shapes, fleshed out by harp, woodwinds, and brass; clanking bells and mbira-like harmonics flare up in quiet patches, and background vocals fan across the stereo field.
    — Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork, 19 May 2026
  • At the monthly event, her patrons gather at the store, select a mattress (alone or with a friend), get cozy and swap the static of the world for the soothing harmonics of Moon’s quartz bowls.
    — Rebecca Leib, Los Angeles Times, 13 Apr. 2026
  • The adaptive dampers prevent unwanted harmonics even when dealing with gnarly surfaces at inappropriate speeds.
    — Mike Duff, Car and Driver, 10 Feb. 2020
  • The bowl-back, thanks to its shape, produces a greater number of high partial harmonics that give it a distinctive, delicate tone preferred by most players of classical music.
    — Tim Parks, New Yorker, 11 Apr. 2026
  • But my transmitter had strong unwanted emissions at odd harmonics of the fundamental frequency.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 31 Jan. 2026
  • Over three extended pieces, his striated long tones glisten with sour harmonics, cavernous overtones, and breath surges that make the music expand and contract in visceral waves.
    — Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader, 8 Dec. 2017
  • Elliott’s playing is both muscular and refined; his delicate astral harmonics at the outset sang out an important early starting point.
    — Luke Shulze, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Aug. 2023
  • Successive bright bands at regular intervals above the fundamental represent the harmonics of the speech.
    — Jeff Kao and Jack Gillum, ProPublica, 25 June 2019
  • However, a new study presents the first exact solution to a damped quantum harmonic oscillator, a system that slowly loses energy.
    — Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 16 Aug. 2025
  • This meditative piece worked best when the mood was quiet and undulating, especially in the passage in high harmonics near the end, so otherworldly in sound, almost like a theremin.
    — Washington Post, 23 Jan. 2020
  • And there were several conjectures floating around that said harmonic coordinates would be bad for modeling gravitational waves.
    — Steve Nadis, Discover Magazine, 20 Apr. 2023
  • Those tiny loops of string whose harmonics were thought to breathe form into every particle and force known to nature (including elusive gravity) hardly even appear anymore on chalkboards at conferences.
    — Quanta Magazine, 15 Sep. 2016
  • Finally, there is Tube+, which reduces overall loop-gain to enhance the second harmonic by +6dB, pushing the tube character further still.
    — Mark Sparrow, Forbes.com, 20 Jan. 2026
  • The business end has lots of interchangeable options, too, including a fiber optic bead, a tunnel sight, and a muzzle brake that is said to improve accuracy by altering barrel harmonics.
    — Joseph Albanese, Field & Stream, 28 Feb. 2020
  • The other reason for picky old rockers to show up is that this company achieves some very powerful harmonics on many of those songs, utilizing Marriott’s immersive capabilities.
    — Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune, 16 Apr. 2026
  • The low-frequency harmonics and vibrations are intended to promote relaxation and support the brainwave patterns associated with deep and restorative sleep.
    — Soundhealth, New York Daily News, 16 Jan. 2026
  • In the piano bell tones where corresponding harmonics are manually played more softly above the fundamental pitch, Angelich’s balance was perfection.
    — Peter Dobrin, Philly.com, 27 Apr. 2018
  • Measurement results are hardly affected by interfering signals or harmonics.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 12 Dec. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'harmonic.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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