FIFTH

In Music, one of the harmonical intervals or concords. It is the second in order of the concords, the ratio of the chords that afford it being as 3:2. It is called the fifth, as containing five terms or sounds between its extremes and four degrees; so that in the natural scale of music it comes in the fifth place or order from the fundamental. The ancients called it Diapente, and the Italians at present call it Qimita. The imperfect, defective, OT false fifth, called by the ancients semi-diapente, is le than the fifth by a le er semitone. [s. 463]