maxima
- 1Plural of maximum.
The graph shows two distinct maxima where the curve peaks.
Seasonal maxima in rainfall occur during the monsoon months.
Note
The Latin plural is at home in mathematics and statistics, where a function can have several local maxima besides its global one and each sample has its own largest value. The anglicized maximums also appears, mostly in less formal writing. Do not confuse it with the medieval note, a singular noun with the same spelling. Context settles it: a graph with maxima has several peaks, while a manuscript's maxima is one long note.
- 2A musical note typically equal to two longae, or eight semibreves, used in older systems of musical notation.
Comparable to a modern whole note, but lasting several times as long.
Medieval scribes wrote the maxima as the longest value in the rhythmic system.
In this transcription, each maxima spans eight semibreves of sustained sound.
Similarlarga
Note
This was the longest value in mensural notation, and its name is simply the Latin for "greatest," the same word that gave English maxim. Because it is built as a doubled longa, it also goes by duplex longa or larga, and US usage can call it an octuple whole note. As a noun in its own right it takes the plural maximae or maximas. Its exact length shifted with the modus that governed how the longa divided.
maxima is a form of maximum
maximum, noun: The highest limit; the greatest amount, number, or degree that can be reached or allowed. Full entry
- Spelling
- maximum → maxima: irregular plural (no -s)
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Origin
From Latin maxima ("greatest"), and a doublet of the word maxim.