programmaticadj.

1896 Godey's Mag. Apr. 422/2 The symphony is not at all programmatic.

1898 Cent. Mag. 55 777 A ‘Bauerntanz’ which is rather programmatic.

1940 Times 9 Feb. 6/5 The exploitation of variation form, not only to exhaust the musical possibilities of the chosen theme but to make it carry descriptive or programmatic meanings, is as old as instrumental music.

1974 Listener 24 Jan. 121/3 A symphonic poem along Straussian programmatic lines.

1984 A. Copland & V. Perlis Copland: 1900–42 xii. 284 The Suite is programmatic, but I used musical ideas to tell the story and rhythmic interest to lift the music above a mere collection of folk tunes.

2002 O. Figes Natasha's Dance (2003) iii. iv. 181 The effect is to break away from the Western laws of development, enabling the form of a composition to be shaped entirely by the ‘content’ of the music (its programmatic statements and visual descriptions) rather than by formal laws of symmetry.

1899 Times 30 Oct. 6/4 The semi-official article is merely ‘a programmatic declaration’.

1904 G. S. Gordon Let. 25 Oct. (1943) 4 Pardon this very egotistical and programmatic letter dear Molly.

1935 B.B.C. Ann. 81/2 Announcements relating to B.B.C. policy in every respect—programmatic, engineering, or other—are issued.

1947 Proc. IRE 35 757/1 Both digital and programmatic information must be stored: the machine must be able to remember both the numbers that are operated on and the instructions for performing the operations.

1958 Listener 27 Nov. 861/1 No new Pope ever makes what might be called a programmatic speech giving the policies he intends to follow.

1971 S. Herrick Astrodynamics I. vii. 176 Programmatic or program-assisted singularities are destructive bits of sub-programming..of which two are noteworthy.

1979 Dædalus Summer 105 Even the most apparently blithe comedies are far more programmatic than a haphazard jumble of anecdotal detail.

1992 Dr. Dobb's Jrnl. Sept. 43/1 (advt.) Q+E Database Library..gives you programmatic access to SQL and non-SQL databases from the macro, script or programming language of any application or development tool.

2002 A. Feenberg Transforming Technol. (rev. ed.) ii. 52 But theoretical texts such as Capital do not say which is fundamental, while programmatic and historical writings usually stress the property system and the role of the state in supporting it.