Definition of "antiphon" []

• A devotional composition sung responsively as part of a liturgy. (noun)
• A short liturgical text chanted or sung responsively preceding or following a psalm, psalm verse, or canticle. (noun)
• Such a text formerly used as a response but now rendered independently. (noun)
• A response; a reply: "It would be truer . . . to see [conservation] as an antiphon to the modernization of the 1950s and 1960s” ( Raphael Samuel). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Vespers consists of five psalms with their antiphons as usual, and the Magnificat, with an antiphon from the Gospel of the day."
• "I general I would say yes, provided the full antiphon is sung."
• "The offertory antiphon is also sung periodically and increasingly so as more and more singers can handle the material."