Definition of "mediant" []

• The third tone in a diatonic musical scale, determining the major or minor quality of the tonic chord. (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.

• "(The harmonic progression in the Bernstein is subdominant to mediant, IV-iii: one of his favorites, particularly in his music for Broadway.) posted by Matthew @ 10: 00 AM"
• "It seems to us that the elementary angles which Mr. Hay conceives to be the tonic, mediant, and dominant, in formal symmetry, will soon be proved to decompose into a scale of linear harmony, forming another beam in this glory of natural analogy."
• "They are both scales of seven: the tonic, mediant, and dominant, find their types in red, yellow, and blue, while the modifications on which the diatonic scale is constructed, resemble, numerically and esthetically, the well-known variations in the spectrum."