Etymology

nete

N1E1T1E1

Today it means: In Ancient Greek musical theory, the highest-pitched fixed note in the farther tetrachord on a lyre, always pitched a perfect fourth above the paramese, with two movable notes between them, the trite (lower in pitch) and the paranete (higher in pitch). The paramese was higher-pitched than the mese (the highest-pitched fixed note in the nearer tetrachord on a lyre) by a ratio of 9:8. Full definition →

Latin nētē ← Ancient Greek νήτη
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The story

  1. Ancient Greek · derived fromνήτη
  2. Latin · borrowed fromnētē
  3. English todaynete

Unadapted borrowing from Latin nētē, from Ancient Greek νήτη (nḗtē, literally “lowest [string]”). It was "lowest" in the sense of being the farthest from the player and physically below the other strings, but was the highest in pitch. Compare the high E string in a modern guitar, which is farthest from the player.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.