polymodaladj.

1910 Amer. Naturalist 44 20 Bimodal and multimodal polygons have received so much attention in the literature of variation... Naturally the first suggestion concerning a bimodal or polymodal polygon is that there is taxonomic heterogeneity in the material examined.

1934 Jrnl. Sedimentary Petrol. 4 73/1 Curve C represents a glacial till, in which more than one mode occurs, and is an example of a polymodal frequency curve.

1975 Nature 28 Aug. 723/1 In general it seems that cells of different sizes, whether they follow a normal or a polymodal distribution, are randomly distributed throughout the tissue.

1988 M. E. Tucker Techniques in Sedimentol. (BNC) 76 The frequency curves of many sediments exhibit several peaks, the polymodal distributions indicating the presence of more than one population of grains.

1929 W. W. Cobbett Cycl. Surv. Chamber Music I. 44/1 Since we are polymodal as well as polytonal, each of these combinations may take the following four different forms according as one or the other triad is major or minor.

1963 Times 8 July 6/2 Some of its antiphonal effects and its polymodal melodic lines failed to tell properly in this amateur performance.

2000 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 21 Feb. e5/3 Messiaen proves something of a mystical maximalist at times, with his polymodal textures and cathedral-like complexes of sonority.

1969 Electroencephalography & Clin. Neurophysiol. 27 650/2 The most common high-threshold unmyelinated units respond well to more than one kind of noxious stimulation... Moreover, these polymodal nociceptors exhibit a persistent enhancement of sensitivity following activation by heat.

1988 Anesthesia & Analgesia 67 115 High-energy lasers are suitable for experimental pain stimulation because they selectively activate the polymodal nociceptors.

2001 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98 6951/1 The capsaicin (vanilloid) receptor..serves as a polymodal detector of pain-producing chemical and physical stimuli.