psalm

The story

1. Ancient Greek · derived fromψαλμός“the sound emanating from twitching or twanging perhaps with the hands or fingers, mostly of musical strings”
2. Latin · derived frompsalmus
3. Old French · derived frompsalme
4. Old English · derived frompsealm
5. Middle English · derived fromsalm
6. English todaypsalm

From Middle English salm or psalme, from Old English psealm, later reinforced from Old French psalme (modern French psaume), both from Latin psalmus, from Ancient Greek ψαλμός (psalmós, “the sound emanating from twitching or twanging perhaps with the hands or fingers, mostly of musical strings”) (from ψάλλω (psállō, “to make a sound by striking, touching, plucking, rubbing, twanging, or vibrating”)), but later in New Testament times the meaning of ψαλμός (psalmós) evolved from its Classical meaning of "a tune played to the harp" to a more general tune that could be played with any instrument; even a song sung with or without musical accompaniment. By the Byzantine Period, it lost all of its instrumental nuances.

Words from the same roots