Faith & RitualGreek → English
Psalmody
/ˈsɑːmədi/noun
The practice of singing psalms, and the body of music written for it.
The Greek roots
ψαλμός
psalmós
song sung to the harp
ᾠδή
ōidḗ
song
Literally: “harp-song singing”
The story of the word
ψάλλειν was to pluck, whether a bowstring, a builder's line or a harp string. A ψαλμός was therefore a song with the strings picked rather than struck, and the Septuagint translators used it to render the Hebrew mizmor, which is how a Greek verb for twanging ended up naming the Psalms. For two centuries in Britain and New England psalmody meant a whole musical culture of parish bands, singing schools and tune books.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
psalmpsalterpsalterymelody
In a sentence
The monastery keeps the old psalmody, unaccompanied and slow.
He collects eighteenth-century psalmody printed in oblong books.