▪ I. ˈmodulate, pa. pple. rare—1.
[ad. L. modulāt-us, pa. pple. of modulārī to modulate.]
Modulated.
| 1814 Cary Dante, Par. xx. 23 As sound Of cittern, at the fret-board, or of pipe, Is, at the wind-hole, modulate and tun'd. |
▪ II. modulate, v.
(ˈmɒdjʊleɪt)
[f. L. modulāt-, ppl. stem of modulārī to measure, adjust to rhythm, make melody, etc., f. modulus: see modulus. Cf. F. moduler.]
1. trans. To set or regulate in a certain measure and proportion; to adjust, temper, vary conformably to; to soften, temper, tone down. (This general sense tends to be coloured by those that follow.)
| 1623 Cockeram 11, Done by measure, modulated. 1783 Burke Sp. E. India Bill Wks. IV. 43, I shall certainly endeavour to modulate myself to this temper. 1797 Mrs. Radcliffe Italian ii, She determined to modulate that nature to her own views. 1832 Tennyson Eleänore iv, Motions flow To one another, even as tho' They were modulated so To an unheard melody. 1858 Bushnell Serm. New Life xii. (1869) 168 He learns how to modulate and operate his will. 1904 Blackw. Mag. Mar. 345/2 His glance..travelled from the walls lined with well-bound books to the lamps modulated to the proper light. |
2. spec. a. To attune (the voice, sounds, etc.) to a certain pitch or key; to vary or inflect in tone, adapt to a new tune; to give tune or melody to. Const. to, † unto.
| 1615 Crooke Body of Man 911 The second vse [of the tongue] is to breake the ayer that is driuen out of the Lungs and to Modulate the voyce. 1701 Grew Cosm. Sacra i. v. §21. 28 The Nose, Lips, Teeth, Palate, Jaw, Tongue,..All serving to make, or to modulate the Sound. 1725 Broome Notes on Pope's Odyss. iv. I. 261 Is it credible that any person could modulate her voice so artfully as to resemble so many voices? 1746 H. Walpole Let. to Mann 28 Mar., Gluck..is to play on a set of drinking-glasses, which he modulates with water. 1762 Sterne Tr. Shandy V. iii, He listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his own unto it. 1788 Gibbon Decl. & F. lii. V. 443 The songs of triumph were modulated to psalms and litanies. 1872 Spurgeon Treas. David Ps. lxvi. 2 The noise is to be modulated with tune and time. |
| fig. 1805 T. S. Surr Winter in Lond. (1806) III. 184 To modulate by counsels resulting from experience, the sweetest chords of the human heart; which thus regulated constitute the harmony of life. 1830 De Quincey Bentley Wks. 1863 VI. 174 Bentley's English style was less meritorious... He took no pains with it... He would not stop to modulate a tuneless sentence. 1845 Craik Sk. Lit. & Learn. III. 100 A soul of nobleness..modulates every cadence [of Spenser's poetry]. |
b. intr. of a song: To be sung in varying cadence or harmony (with).
| 1815 Shelley Alastor 46, I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain May modulate with murmurs of the air,..And voice of living beings. |
3. a. trans. To sing, intone (a song). b. intr. To play, make melody (on an instrument). rare.
| c 1557 Abp. Parker Ps. xcii. 1 To thy good name, O God so hye, Due laudes to modulate. 1698 Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 174 Who hearing one sweetly modulating on an Ismean Pipe, swore he would rather hear the neighing of an Horse. 1889 Harper's Mag. Oct. 680 We are conscious of a murmuring humble voice: it is a beggar, who is modulating a prayer for alms. |
4. Mus. † a. trans. To pass to (a particular note) in the course of a composition. Obs.
| 1797 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XII. 512/1 After having sung the tone ut, we naturally modulate the third mi, and the fifth sol, instead of the double octave of mi, and the octave of sol. |
† b. intr. To pass, in accordance with the laws of melody, from one note to another; to compose music correctly. Obs.
| 1782 Burney Hist. Mus. II. 19 note, The Greeks more frequently modulated from the key note to its fifth below, than to the fifth above. 1797 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XII. 192/1 To modulate properly in the same tone, it is necessary, 1. To run through all the sounds of it in an agreeable air [etc.]. |
c. To pass from one key to or into another; to change the key. (Also said of the key.) † to modulate upon (a particular note): to introduce (it) as a transition to another key.
| 1721 A. Malcolm Treat. Mus. xiii. 441 To modulate into and make Cadences upon several other Keys. Ibid. 446 It now remains to shew, how to modulate from one Key to another, so that the Transitions may be easy and natural. 1797 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XII. 193/1 Issuing from the major mode of ut, to modulate upon its mediant. 1889 Prout Harmony x. (ed. 3) 104 A minor key most often modulates to one of the related major keys. 1890 A. B. Bach Art Ballad 128 Loewe here modulates..from G minor into E flat minor. |
| transf. 1885 S. Cox Expos. xi. 131 In the middle of verse 5, the invocation of a divine advent modulates into a sorrowful and pathetic confession of sin. |
5. trans. Chiefly Telecommunications. a. To vary the amplitude or some other characteristic of (a wave or oscillatory signal, or a beam of particles) in accordance with the variations of a second signal, usu. a wave of lower frequency; also used with the property that is varied as obj.
| 1908 Trans. Amer. Inst. Electr. Engin. XXVII. 575 For wireless telephony three things are necessary:..2. Means for modulating this stream of waves in accordance with sound waves. 1921 J. Scott-Taggart Thermionic Tubes xiii. 354 In wireless telephony, a steady stream of waves (usually termed the carrier wave) is usually modulated by means of a microphone. 1941 Electronic Engin. XIV. 485/1 The direct transmission and reception of speech or music over long distances..is impractical and propagation of audio frequencies is usually accomplished by using them to modulate an R.F. wave acting as carrier. 1952 R. W. Ditchburn Light x. 299 It is not possible to observe the progress of a continuous beam of light without marking or ‘modulating’ it in some way. Three main methods of modulation have been used: (a) the toothed-wheel method, (b) the rotating-mirror method, and (c) the electronic shutter. In any of these methods the transit time is derived from a measurement of the frequency of the modulator. 1959 Chambers's Encycl. II. 591/2 In broadcasting on long, medium and short waves it is normally the amplitude which is modulated. 1962 Newnes Conc. Encycl. Electr. Engin. 428/2 In the klystron..the single cavity both modulates the beam [of electrons] to provide bunching, and abstracts energy from the beam on its return. 1965 Science 8 Oct. 153/3 The simplest way to modulate a beam of light—that is, the simplest way to make it carry a message—is to turn the generator of light on and off. 1972 Sci. Amer. Sept. 132/2 The received signal is decoded into its components and used to modulate three independent electron beams, each of which is allowed to strike only the red, green or blue phosphor dots. |
b. To apply a signal to (a device) that modulates its output signal.
| 1920 P. E. Edelman Exper. Wireless Stations (rev. ed.) xv. 238 Starting with a telephone transmitter, this may be used to grid modulate one vacuum tube which in turn is cascaded to several others. 1953 W. A. Edson Vacuum-Tube Oscillators xvi. 391 Magnetrons are ordinarily modulated by applying a large negative pulse to the cathode. 1973 Sci. Amer. Nov. 33/2 These diodes can be modulated rapidly by simply modulating the electric current that powers them. |
c. To impress (a signal) on to a carrier wave by modulation.
| 1962 A. Nisbett Technique Sound Studio 267 A system for distributing audio information by modulating it on to a high frequency carrier..which is then amplified..and broadcast. 1970 J. Earl Tuners & Amplifiers v. 118 This [signal] cannot be added direct to the L + R information fed to the transmitter. First it has to be modulated on to a subcarrier of 38kHz. 1975 Gramophone Jan. 1412/3, CD-4 employs a carrier tone at supersonic frequency..on to which is [sic] modulated the difference signals. |
d. transf. To exert a modifying or controlling influence on; to regulate.
| 1964 Science 15 May 819/3 This explanation..places some restriction on the details of any model involving regulation by modulating transfer RNA. 1971 Sci. Amer. July 55/3 It seems certain that the brain can modulate the transmission of olfactory information as early as the level of the first synapse of the olfactory pathway. 1971 Nature 20 Aug. 550/2 Thus we conclude that magnetism may modulate climate to some degree by the ability of the Earth's magnetic field somehow to provide a shield against solar corpuscular radiation. 1973 Ibid. 16 Nov. 154/1 Although strychnine had no effect in our system, actin-like proteins may form structures that modulate the mobility of lymphocyte receptors. 1974 Sci. Amer. Nov. 39/1 The steam flow is modulated by a control valve actuated by a speed governor on the rotor. |
6. Biol. Of a cell: to undergo modulation into (see modulation 8).
| 1956 C. H. Waddington Princ. Embryol. xvi. 361 When differentiated vertebrate cells are grown in tissue culture.., they ‘modulate’ into less-specialised forms which may appear to be dedifferentiated, but they do not re-acquire the ability to develop into some tissue other than the one from which they were originally derived. 1964 N. T. Spratt Introd. Cell Differentiation vi. 68 Although cells of cultured tissues may undergo temporary dedifferentiation (that is, may modulate), permanent loss of basic properties which distinguish the cells as to type seems to be rare. |
Hence ˈmodulated, ˈmodulating ppl. adjs.
| 1735 Somerville Chase iii. 73 When The Master's Hand, in modulated Air, Bids the loud Organ breathe. 1751 W. Thompson Sickness v. 230 May the nightly Pow'r, Which whispers on my Slumbers, cease to breathe Her modulating Impulse through my Soul. a 1806 H. K. White Rem. (1837) 359 The pleasure we derive from tragedy is a pleasing sorrow, a modulated pain. 1874 Symonds Sk. Italy & Greece (1898) I. ix. 173 Clear waves bathed in modulated azure. 1880 Expositor XII. 291 A number of phrases follow each other asyndetically, without conjunctive or modulating particles. 1919 Proc. IRE VII. 193 The modulated output is therefore proportional to the curvature of the characteristic. 1920 M. B. Sleeper Wireless Design & Pract. viii. 133 A modulated vacuum-tube transmitter can be divided into..the radiating, oscillating, reaction, and modulation circuits. 1921 Electrician 21 Jan. 95/2 In modulated wave signalling it has been proposed to leave out one of the essential modulating effects. |