| time signature | |
| —n | |
| music a sign usually consisting of two figures, one above the other, the upper figure representing the number of beats per bar and the lower one the time value of each beat. This sign is placed after the key signature at the outset of a piece or section of a piece | |
| a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal. |
| an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle. |
time signature
in musical notation, sign that indicates the metre of a composition. Most time signatures consist of two vertically aligned numbers, such as , , , and . The top figure reflects the number of beats in each measure, or metrical unit; the bottom figure indicates the note value that receives one beat (here, respectively, half note, quarter note, eighth note, and sixteenth note). When measures contain an uneven number of beats falling regularly into two subgroups, the division may be indicated as, for instance, instead of
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