Harmonic
/hɑrˈmɑnɪk/noun
A frequency that is a whole-number multiple of a fundamental frequency.
The Greek roots
Literally: “belonging to the fitting-together”
The story of the word
Before it meant anything musical, ἁρμονία was joinery. Homer uses it in the Odyssey for the fastenings that hold Odysseus's raft together, timber pegged to timber. The Pythagoreans found whole-number ratios in vibrating strings, the word moved to sound, and physics eventually gave it back its literal sense: a harmonic is a frequency that fits the fundamental exactly, which is why a bowed string sounds like one note and not a crowd. Arthritis comes from ἄρθρον, a joint of the body, a cousin of ἁρμός through the same Indo-European root for fitting together.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
In a sentence
Touch the string lightly at the halfway point and you get the second harmonic.
The bridge failed because the wind kept feeding one harmonic.