Synthesizer
/ˈsɪnθəsaɪzər/noun
An electronic instrument that generates and shapes sound rather than recording it.
The Greek roots
Literally: “putting-together device”
The story of the word
Chemistry claimed the verb first: to synthesize was to build a compound out of its parts, exactly what σύνθεσις described in Greek, which used the word for assembling an argument as readily as a mixture. RCA's engineers attached the noun to an electronic instrument in the mid-1950s with a machine that read its music off punched paper tape. Robert Moog's voltage-controlled cabinets of the 1960s put it in the hands of players and fixed the meaning for good.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
He layered three synthesizer parts until the chord sounded like a choir.
The band toured with a synthesizer that needed two people to carry it.