interval
Pluralintervals
- 1
- 2A distance in space between two points or objects.
A small interval separated the two parked cars.
The fence posts stand at equal intervals along the field.
Note
The oldest picture in the word is a military one. Latin intervallum was literally the space between two palisades or walls, from inter 'between' and vallum 'palisade'. That spatial sense survives here. Milton calls the narrow ground between two armies 'a dreadful interval' in Paradise Lost (1667). The London Gazette of 1666 uses it for the gaps made by pulling down houses to stop the Great Fire.
- 3A break between the parts of a performance such as a play or concert.
During the interval, the audience went out to the bar for drinks.
The orchestra tuned up again after the interval.
Similarintermission, break, interlude
Note
Theatergoers in Britain and India meet the word in this sense: the pause between acts when the audience leaves its seats. American English generally says intermission for the same break. A visitor will hear 'see you at the interval' in a London foyer where a New York one would say intermission. Both words are understood everywhere, but each sounds local in its own country.
- 4The difference in pitch between two notes, or the two notes themselves considered together.
The interval of a perfect fifth gives the melody its open sound.
She trained her ear to recognize each interval by sound alone.
Note
Musicians use the word for two things at once: the distance between two pitches, and the pair of pitches themselves, which theory also calls a dyad. The distance can be stated as a ratio between the two pitches or as a logarithmic measure. Context usually shows which is meant. 'Sing the interval' asks for the two notes, while 'measure the interval' asks for the gap between them.
- 5An unbroken stretch of the real number line, which may also be empty or consist of a single point.
The function stays continuous over the entire interval.
We split the domain into several smaller intervals for the calculation.
Note
Mathematicians mean any unbroken stretch of the real numbers lying between two endpoints. An interval is called open, closed or half-open depending on whether those endpoints belong to it. The definition deliberately includes the edge cases: an interval can be empty, or shrink to a single point of length zero. That inclusiveness keeps theorems about intervals from needing exceptions.
- 6A scheduled break between the periods of play in a game; half time.
The coach gave a sharp talk during the interval to lift the players.
Both sides went in level at the interval.
Note
Sports reporting often prefers this word to half time, and it travels with the preposition at. A 2011 BBC Sport report has Spain making 'three substitutions at the interval'. Teams also go in 'level at the interval' or lead 'at the interval'. The phrasing marks a point in the match rather than a stretch of time, so things happen at it rather than during it.
- 7One of the two breaks in a day's cricket, for lunch and for tea, that separate its three sessions of play.
Rain delayed the start, so the first interval came later than usual.
The batsmen added thirty runs before the tea interval.
Similarbreak
Note
Cricket names its two daily breaks after the meals taken in them: the lunch interval and the tea interval. Unlike the half-time break of other sports, there are two of them, splitting the day into three sessions. Commentators therefore usually say which one they mean, as in 'thirty runs before the tea interval'. A bare 'the interval' is left for when context makes the meal obvious.
Practice
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Origin
It came through Middle English and Old French from Latin intervallum, meaning "space between, distance, or pause," literally the space between two palisades or walls. The Latin word combines inter ("between") with vallum ("palisade, wall").