gradation

Borrowed from French gradation. By surface analysis, Blend of grade +‎ -ation.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡɹəˈdeɪʃən/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɡɹəˈdeɪʃən/, /ˌɡɹeɪˈdeɪʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

gradation (countable and uncountable, plural gradations)

1. A sequence of gradual, successive stages; a systematic progression.
2. A passing by small degrees from one tone or shade, as of color, to another.

   Synonym: nuance

   • 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian‎:

     A decade ago, the British department-store chain John Lewis built itself a long warehouse, painted in gradations of sky blue.

3. The act of gradating or arranging in grades.
4. Any degree or relative position in an order or series.
   • 1832, [Isaac Taylor], Saturday Evening. […], London: Holdsworth and Ball, →OCLC:

     the several gradations of the intelligent universe

   • 1954 February 15, Henry E. Michelson, “The Syndrome of Lupus Erythematosus”, in Modern Medicine, volume 22, number 4, Minneapolis, Minn.: Modern Medicine Publications, Inc., page 96:

     Two distinct types of lupus erythematosus are recognized: [1] chronic or discoid, which is essentially a skin lesion, and [2] severe systemic, designated as acute. Between the two types are many gradations to which the term subacute has been applied.

5. (countable) A calibration marking.
6. (music) A gradual change within one parameter, or an overlapping of two blocks of sound.
7. (music) A diatonic succession of chords.
8. (phonetics) Ablaut.

• consonant gradation

gradation (third-person singular simple present gradations, present participle gradationing, simple past and past participle gradationed)

1. (transitive) To form with gradations.

• graduation

• DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. →ISBN.

• adorating, indagator, tanagroid

Borrowed from Latin gradātiōnem.

• IPA^(key): /ɡʁa.da.sjɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

gradation f (plural gradations)

1. gradation

Not to be confused with graduation.

• “gradation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.