Forms: 6 cliefe, 6–7 cliffe, 7 Sc. cleiffe, 7–8 cleave, 7–9 cliff, 8 cleff, 8– clef. [a. F. clef:—L. clāv-em key. In spelling formerly confused with the various forms of CLIFF, CLEVE; cf. quots. 1658, 1674.]
Music. A character placed on a particular line of a stave, to indicate the name and pitch of the notes standing on that line, and hence of those on the other lines and spaces. Sometimes loosely = stave.
There are three clefs in use, the C, tenor, or alto clef, the G or treble clef, and the F or bass clef, which denote respectively the middle C on a piano, the G above, and the F below. They are written respectively as here shown [image].
1579. Gosson, Sch. Abuse (Arb.), 28. How many keyes, how many cliffes, howe many moodes.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., III. i. 77. D sol re, one Cliffe, two notes haue I.
1597. Morley, Introd. Mus., 3. A Cliefe is a charecter set on a rule at the beginning of a verse shewing the height and lownes of euery note standing on the same verse. Ibid., 104. Of how manie parts the Canon is, so manie Cliefes do they set at the beginning of the verse.
1658. Cokaine, Elegy Pilkington, 22, Poems (1669), 78. The Muses two-clif’d Hill he did surpass Whose Musick had three Cliffs to do it grace.
1674. Playford, Skill Mus., I. i. 2. Called seven Cliffs or more properly Cleaves.
a. 1789. Burney, Hist. Mus., II. 477. The circle, with a note of interrogation, placed at the beginning of each line where the Clef should be, seems to ask the Singer in what Key or Clef he means to begin.
1833. Brewster, Nat. Magic, ix. 230. His ears were insensible to all sounds below F, marked by the base clef.
1879. Hullah, in Grove, Dict. Mus., I. 370/2. When notes are written ‘in the tenor clef’ (more properly ‘on the teror stave’).
† b. B clef: the name formerly given to the two characters now called flat (♭) and natural (♯), both of which originated from modifications of the letter b, used to denote B flat and B natural respectively. Cf. B II. 1.
1597. Morley, Introd. Mus., 3. The ♭ cliefe which is common to euery part, is made thus ♭ or thus ♯ the one signifying the halfe note and flatt singing: the other signifying the whole note or sharpe singing.
1706. Phillips, s.v., The fourth is nam’d the B-cliff, or B-fa-be-mi Cliff, and apply’d to all Parts indifferently; its Property being only to shew, when Notes are to be sung, or play’d Flat, and when Sharp.
fig. 1625. Pemble, Justification, 219. Needlesse speculations telling vs, that now the Apostle hath altered his cliffe.
a. 1657. Sir J. Balfour, Ann. Scotl. (1824–5), II. 140. They tempered ther stringes to such a cleiffe of ambition and superstitious foolriy.
1868. Whitman, On Beach at Night Alone, Poems 376. I think a thought of the clef of the universes.
