Cadence entered Middle English from Italian cadenza, in the sense ‘the rhythm and flow of music or verse’. With its connotations of sweet music, it is an unlikely relative of the word cadaver. However, both come ultimately from the same Latin verb, cadere, meaning ‘to fall’: the shared notion is that of the voice or a note ‘falling’ and of the body ‘fallen’ in death. Several other words, similarly wide-ranging in meaning, also have their origin in cadere, including accident, cadenza, case¹, chance, chute, and decay.