sequence
Pluralsequences
Verbsequences, sequencing, sequenced
Pluralsequences
Formssequences, sequencing, sequenced
- 1A series of things that follow one another in a particular order.
The instructions must be completed in the correct sequence or the machine will jam.
He memorized the entire sequence of moves before the competition.
Similarorder, series, succession, progression, string
Note
The core sense carries the word's history in plain view: Latin sequī, "to follow," became Late Latin sequentia, "a following," and passed through Old French into Middle English. It can be counted (a DNA sequence, two sequences) or used for order in general. What it stresses is the arrangement itself. An alphabet follows a sequence, and changing the order gives you a different sequence.
- 2The condition of following one after another; order of succession.
The sequence of historical events shaped the nation's borders.
Cause and effect follow in strict sequence.
Similarorder, succession, progression, chronology
Note
Here the word names order itself rather than the things put in order, so it takes no article and no plural. Its natural home is the phrase in sequence (complete the tasks in sequence), where it works like an adverb meaning one after another. When you can count them, you want the "set in order" meaning instead.
- 3
- 4A series of shots in a film or television show that depict a single action or style.
The director shot the dream sequence in a single take.
Editors trimmed the fight sequence to keep the pace tight.
Note
Film and television talk builds this sense into compounds named for what happens on screen: a chase sequence, a dream sequence, a fight sequence. A sequence sits between the single shot and the whole film. It is a run of shots held together by one action or one style. Tasha Robinson's 2012 review of The Pirates! Band of Misfits strings several together in one breath.
- 5A mathematical list in which each entry has a fixed position, generally identified by a natural number.
The Fibonacci sequence begins with 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8.
Mathematicians proved the sequence converges to a finite limit.
Note
Mathematics makes the everyday idea exact. Formally, a sequence is a function whose domain is the natural numbers or an initial stretch of them, so every term receives its own index: first, second, third. That is why the Fibonacci sequence can be laid out term by term. A sequence whose terms settle toward a finite limit is said to converge.
- 6To establish the order in which the monomers of a biological polymer are linked, such as the amino acids of a protein or the bases of a nucleic acid.
Researchers sequence the bacterial DNA to identify the strain.
Her team sequenced the protein to locate the faulty region.
Note
Laboratory biology turned the noun into a working verb. You sequence a protein or a sample of bacterial DNA, and the result is a DNA sequence in the everyday "set order" sense. What gets determined is the linear order of the subunits: nucleotide bases in DNA or RNA, amino acid residues in a protein. The object of the verb is always the molecule, never the order itself.
- 7A series of musical phrases in which a theme or melody is repeated, with some change each time, such as in pitch or length.
The melody rises through a rising sequence before resolving to the home key.
Bach often spins long passages out of a single sequence.
- 8A meld in which at least three cards share a suit and form an unbroken run of ranks.
He completed a heart sequence with the jack, queen, and king.
Holding a long sequence gave her a strong advantage.
Similarrun
Note
Card play is older in this word than most readers expect: the Old French sequence already meant "a sequence of cards." In games such as rummy and canasta, it is a scoring meld of three or more consecutive ranks. The suit is what matters here. A run of consecutive ranks in mixed suits does not count.
- 9To create or arrange a piece of music electronically using a sequencer.
He sequenced the drum patterns before adding live guitar.
Modern producers sequence entire albums without a single live instrument.
Similarprogram
Note
Music producers use this verb for work done with a sequencer, the device or software that stores and plays back ordered note and control data. To sequence a track is to program it rather than perform it, as with drum patterns laid down before live guitar is added. Do not confuse it with the composer's repeated phrase, which is a pattern inside the music, not a way of making it.
- 10A musical composition used in some Catholic Masses between the readings, the most famous being the Dies Irae once sung at funeral services.
The Dies Irae is the most haunting sequence in the medieval repertoire.
Composers set the Easter sequence to elaborate polyphony.
Note
Church music gave the word one of its oldest specialized uses, and the Old French word already meant "answering verses." A sequence is a chant sung in certain Masses after the Alleluia and before the Gospel. The Dies Irae, once part of the Requiem, is the best known. Keep it apart from the repeated-melody sense: this one names a whole piece, that one a device inside a piece.
Less common meanings
- 11To move through a sequence or series of things, one stage after another.
The dancers sequence through their formations without missing a beat.
If indeed smokers sequence through more biologic therapies, these findings may bring about significant practice changes focused on smoking cessation earlier in the CD course.
2023, Madeline Alizadeh, Osman AliSimilarcycle, progress, move, step
Note
Unlike the other verb senses, this one takes no object and nearly always travels with through. Children sequence through a picture book's illustrations; patients sequence through one therapy after another. It is uncommon and turns up mainly in professional writing on education and medicine. In everyday prose, go through or work through is the safer choice.
- 12An event that follows from another; a consequence or result.
The widow's poverty was the inevitable sequence of her husband's debts.
he found no words to convey the impressions he had received; then he gave way to the anger always the sequence of the antagonism of opinion between them.
1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" CountryNote
This is the archaic sense, now rare, in which a sequence is what follows from an event, not merely what comes after it. Mary Noailles Murfree still writes in 1891 of "the anger always the sequence of the antagonism of opinion" between two people. Modern English gives this job to consequence. Using sequence this way today reads as deliberately old-fashioned.
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Practice
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Origin
It comes from Middle English and Old French sequence, from Late Latin sequentia ("a following"), from Latin sequēns ("following"), from the verb sequī ("to follow").