A cadence is the rhythmic flow or beat of something, the regular rise and fall that gives it a pattern. When you listen to someone speak, you can hear their cadence: the way their voice speeds up and slows down, rises and falls, creating a kind of music in their words. A teacher might have a steady, reassuring cadence when explaining a difficult concept, while an excited friend telling a story might have a rapid, bouncing cadence.

The word originally comes from music, where cadence describes the harmonic pattern that ends a phrase, like the satisfying da-dum at the end of a song. But it's expanded to mean any regular rhythm. Soldiers marching have a cadence, their boots hitting the ground in perfect time. Runners talk about their cadence: how many steps they take per minute. Even writers think about cadence, arranging their sentences so they flow with a pleasing rhythm.

You can feel cadence in poetry, where stressed and unstressed syllables create a beat. You can hear it in someone's accent or speaking style. When something has good cadence, it feels natural and steady, like a heartbeat or waves rolling onto shore. A basketball player dribbling down the court has a cadence. So does the clicking of a bicycle chain or the tapping of fingers on a desk.