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tablature - 6 dictionary results
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tab⋅la⋅ture

  [tab-luh-cher, -choor]
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–noun
1. Music. any of various systems of music notation using letters, numbers, or other signs to indicate the strings, frets, keys, etc., to be played.
2. a tabular space, surface, or structure.
Origin:
1565–75; < MF, Latinization (influenced by L tabula board) of It intavolatura, deriv. of intavolare to put on a board, score
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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tab·la·ture   (tāb'lə-chŏŏr', -chər)   
n.  
  1. An engraved tablet or surface.
  2. Music A system of notation using letters, symbols, or other visual cues instead of standard notation to indicate how a musical piece is to be played. For example, guitar or banjo tablature typically consists of a diagram of the strings with finger positions indicated by numerals corresponding to the appropriate frets.

[French, alteration (influenced by Latin tabula, table) of Italian intavolatura, from intavolare, to put on a board : Latin in-, in- + tavola, table, board (from Latin tabula).]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Tablature

Tab"la*ture\, n. [Cf. F. tablature ancient mode of musical notation. See Table.]

1. (Paint.) A painting on a wall or ceiling; a single piece comprehended in one view, and formed according to one design; hence, a picture in general. --Shaftesbury.

2. (Mus.) An ancient mode of indicating musical sounds by letters and other signs instead of by notes.

The chimes of bells are so rarely managed that I went up to that of Sir Nicholas, where I found who played all sorts of compositions from the tablature before him as if he had fingered an organ. --Evelyn.

3. (Anat.) Division into plates or tables with intervening spaces; as, the tablature of the cranial bones.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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tablature 
type of musical notation for lute or stringed instrument, 1574, from Fr. tablature (1553), from L. tabula "table" (see table); infl. by It. tavolatura, from tavolare "to board, plank, enclose with boards."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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tablature tab·la·ture (tāb'lə-ch&oobreve;r', -chər)
n.

  1. An engraved tablet or surface.
  2. The cranial bones considered as two laminae separated by the diploe.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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tablature

system of musical notation based on a player's finger position, as opposed to notes showing rhythm and pitch. Tablatures were used for lute and keyboard music during the Renaissance and Baroque eras

Learn more about tablature with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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