Editing Interval (music) (section)

===Latin nomenclature===
Up to the end of the 18th century, [[Latin]] was used as an official language throughout Europe for scientific and music textbooks. In music, many English terms are derived from Latin. For instance, [[semitone]] is from Latin ''{{Lang|la|semitonus}}''.

The prefix semi- is typically used herein to mean "shorter", rather than "half".<ref>Gioseffo Zarlino, ''Le Istitutione harmoniche ... nelle quali, oltre le materie appartenenti alla musica, si trovano dichiarati molti luoghi di Poeti, d'Historici e di Filosofi, si come nel leggerle si potrà chiaramente vedere'' (Venice, 1558): 162.</ref><ref>{{ill|Jan Frederik Niermeyer|de|lt=J. F. Niermeyer}}, ''Mediae latinitatis lexicon minus: Lexique latin médiéval–français/anglais: A Medieval Latin–French/English Dictionary'', abbreviationes et index fontium composuit C. van de Kieft, adiuvante G. S. M. M. Lake-Schoonebeek (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976): 955. {{ISBN|90-04-04794-8}}.</ref><ref>''Robert De Handlo: The Rules, and Johannes Hanboys, The Summa: A New Critical Text and Translation'', edited and translated by Peter M. Lefferts. Greek & Latin Music Theory 7 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991): 193fn17. {{ISBN|0803279345}}.</ref> Namely, a semitonus, semiditonus, semidiatessaron, semidiapente, semihexachordum, semiheptachordum, or semidiapason, is shorter by one semitone than the corresponding whole interval. For instance, a semiditonus (3 semitones, or about 300 cents) is not half of a ditonus (4 semitones, or about 400 cents), but a ditonus shortened by one semitone. Moreover, in [[Pythagorean tuning]] (the most commonly used tuning system up to the 16th century), a semitritonus (d5) is smaller than a tritonus (A4) by one [[Pythagorean comma]] (about a quarter of a semitone).

{|class="wikitable"
|-
! Number of<br/>semitones|| [[#Quality|Quality]] and [[#Number|number]] || Short || Latin<br/>nomenclature
|-
| 0 || Perfect unison || P1 || {{lang|la|unisonus}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1 || Minor second || m2 || {{lang|la|semitonus}}
|-
| Augmented unison || A1 || {{lang|la|unisonus superflua}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2 || Major second || M2 || {{lang|la|tonus}}
|-
| [[Diminished third]] || d3 ||
|-
| rowspan="2"| 3 || Minor third || m3 || {{lang|la|semiditonus}}
|-
| [[Augmented second]] || A2 || {{lang|la|tonus superflua}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| 4 || Major third || M3 || {{lang|la|ditonus}}
|-
| [[Diminished fourth]] || d4 || {{lang|la|semidiatessaron}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| 5 || Perfect fourth || P4 || {{lang|la|diatessaron}}
|-
| [[Augmented third]] || A3 || {{lang|la|ditonus superflua}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| 6 || Diminished fifth || d5 || {{lang|la|semidiapente, semitritonus}}
|-
| Augmented fourth || A4 || {{lang|la|tritonus}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| 7 || Perfect fifth || P5 || {{lang|la|diapente}}
|-
| [[Diminished sixth]] || d6 || {{lang|la|semihexachordum}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| 8 || Minor sixth || m6 || {{lang|la|hexachordum minus, semitonus maius cum diapente, tetratonus}}
|-
| [[Augmented fifth]] || A5 || {{lang|la|diapente superflua}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| 9 || Major sixth || M6 || {{lang|la|hexachordum maius, tonus cum diapente}}
|-
| [[Diminished seventh]] || d7 || {{lang|la|semiheptachordum}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| 10 || Minor seventh || m7 || {{lang|la|heptachordum minus, semiditonus cum diapente, pentatonus}}
|-
| [[Augmented sixth]] || A6 || {{lang|la|hexachordum superflua}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| 11 || Major seventh || M7 || {{lang|la|heptachordum maius, ditonus cum diapente}}
|-
| [[Diminished octave]] || d8 || {{lang|la|semidiapason}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| 12 || Perfect octave || P8 || {{lang|la|diapason}}
|-
| [[Augmented seventh]] || A7 || {{lang|la|heptachordum superflua}}
|}