a. rare. [f. L. spondē-us (see next) + -AN.] Of music: Characterized by or consisting of spondees.
1776. Burney, Hist. Mus., I. 35. The first of these [enharmonic melodies] they reckon to have been the nome or melody called Spondean.
c. 1800. R. Cumberland, John De Lancaster (1809), I. 287. By the simple recitation of the spondean hymn.
