1. [n]  a rhythmic group of eight lines of verse
2. [n]  a musical interval of eight tones
3. [n]  a feast day and the seven days following it

Octave
Octave

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1. \Oc"tave\, n. [F., fr. L. octava an eighth, fr. octavus
   eighth, fr. octo eight. See {Eight}, and cf. {Octavo},
   {Utas}.]
   1. The eighth day after a church festival, the festival day
      being included; also, the week following a church
      festival. ``The octaves of Easter.'' --Jer. Taylor.
   2. (Mus.)
      (a) The eighth tone in the scale; the interval between one
          and eight of the scale, or any interval of equal
          length; an interval of five tones and two semitones.
      (b) The whole diatonic scale itself.
   Note: The ratio of a musical tone to its octave above is 1:2
         as regards the number of vibrations producing the
         tones.
   3. (Poet.) The first two stanzas of a sonnet, consisting of
      four verses each; a stanza of eight lines.
            With mournful melody it continued this octave. --Sir
                                                  P. Sidney.
   {Double octave}. (Mus.) See under {Double}.
   {Octave flute} (Mus.), a small flute, the tones of which
      range an octave higher than those of the German or
      ordinary flute; -- called also {piccolo}. See {Piccolo}.
   4. A small cask of wine, the eighth part of a pipe.
   

2. \Oc"tave\, a.
   Consisting of eight; eight. --Dryden.
   

A high-level interactive language by John W. Eaton, with help from many others, like MATLAB, primarily intended for numerical computations. Octave provides a convenient command line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically.

Octave can do arithmetic for real and complex scalars and matrices, solve sets of nonlinear algebraic equations, integrate functions over finite and infinite intervals, and integrate systems of ordinary differential and differential-algebraic equations.

Octave has been compiled and tested with g++ and libg++ on a SPARCstation 2 running SunOS 4.1.2, an IBM RS/6000 running AIX 3.2.5, DEC Alpha systems running OSF/1 1.3 and 3.0, a DECstation 5000/240 running Ultrix 4.2a, and Intel 486 systems running Linux. It should work on most other Unix systems with g++ and libg++.

Octave is distributed under the GNU General Public License. It requires gnuplot, a C++ compiler and Fortran compiler or f2c translator.

Latest version: 2.0.16 (released 2000-01-30), as of 2000-06-26.

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or your nearest GNU archive site.

E-mail: <[email protected]>.