bass

bass

¹

1. the lowest adult male voice usually having a range from E a 13th below middle C to D a tone above it

2. a singer with such a voice

3. the bass the lowest part in a piece of harmony

4. the low-frequency component of an electrical audio signal, esp in a record player or tape recorder

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bass

²

1. any of various sea perches, esp Morone labrax, a popular game fish with one large spiny dorsal fin separate from a second smaller one

2. another name for the European perch (see perch (sense 1))

3. any of various predatory North American freshwater percoid fishes, such as Micropterus salmoides, (largemouth bass): family Centrarchidae (sunfishes, etc.)

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bass

1. another name for bast

2. a bast fibre bag for holding an angler's catch

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

bass

[bās (sounds) and bas (fish)]

(acoustics)

Sounds having frequencies at the lower end of the audio range, below about 250 hertz.

(vertebrate zoology)

The common name for a number of fishes assigned to two families, Centrarchidae and Serranidae, in the order Perciformes.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Bass

 

(1) The lowest masculine voice. High or singing bass is distinguished from low or deep bass (Italian, basso profundo). In opera, the comic bass is common. The high bass can be lyric (with a range roughly from G of the great octave to F of the first octave) or dramatic (from F of the great octave to E of the first octave). In Russian choral singing the low bass (from C through E of the great octave to D through E of the first octave) is also called the “central bass.” In choral singing, the bass is divided into first bass singers (whose part is sung by the baritones) and second bass singers (actual bass). In Russian choirs there are also so-called contrabass basses who are capable of reaching notes at the low limit of the human voice (A to B-flat of the contra-octaves).

(2) The lowest part of a many-voiced musical work.

(3) Figured bass (basso continuo).

(4) Musical instruments in a low register, including the bass tuba and double bass, as well as the folk cello in the Ukraine (basolia) and Byelorussia (basetlia).

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.