Art & MusicGreek → English
Metronome
/ˈmɛtrənoʊm/noun
A device that ticks out a steady beat at a chosen speed.
The Greek roots
μέτρον
métron
measure
νόμος
nómos
law, rule
Literally: “measure law”
The story of the word
Dietrich Winkel worked out the double-weighted pendulum in Amsterdam; Johann Maelzel patented it in 1815 under his own name, which is why the tempo marks in scores read MM. Beethoven was among the first composers to write those numbers down, and musicians have argued about his figures ever since. In Greek music νόμος was also a fixed melodic pattern, a tune with rules.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1815
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
metricgeometryautonomyastronomy
In a sentence
Start the metronome at sixty and do not go faster until the fingering is clean.