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noun
In ancient musical theory, the lowest-pitched fixed note in the nearer tetrachord on a lyre, always pitched a perfect fourth below the mese, with two movable notes between them, the parhypate (lower in pitch) and the lichanos (higher in pitch).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Qualifier: musical pitch
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Unadapted borrowing from Latin hypatē, from Ancient Greek ὑπάτη (hupátē, literally “highest/nearest [string]”). The hypate was the "highest" in the sense of being the string on a lyre nearest the player and physically above the remaining strings (compare a modern guitar, where the low E string is nearest the player), but actually the lowest in pitch.
