octatonic

adjective

oc·​ta·​ton·​ic ˌäk-tə-ˈtä-nik 

variants or less commonly octotonic

: relating to or employing an eight-note scale made up of alternating semitones and whole tones

… a French sixth chord, which contains two tritones, acts as a nexus between the whole-tone scale, which contains three, and the octatonic scale, which contains four.

—Richard Taruskin, Music in the Early Twentieth Century, 2009

see scale

octatonicism

ˌäk-tə-ˈtä-nə-ˌsi-zəm 

noun

Word History

First Known Use

1963, in the meaning defined above

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