Faith & RitualGreek → English
Hymn
/hɪm/noun
A song of praise, usually addressed to a god and usually sung by a congregation.
The Greek roots
ὕμνος
hýmnos
song of praise
Literally: “song of praise”
Follow a root:ὕμνος2 words
The story of the word
A hýmnos praised gods or heroes and had nothing Christian about it; the Homeric Hymns address Apollo, Demeter and Hermes at length. The translators of the Septuagint used the word for temple songs, and the church kept it. English spelling holds an n that nobody pronounces, put back by scholars who wanted the Latin hymnus visible on the page.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- Old English
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
hymnalhymnodyhymnographer
In a sentence
They sang the last hymn without the organ, which suited it better.