Art & MusicGreek → English
Xylophone
/ˈzaɪləfoʊn/noun
A percussion instrument of tuned wooden bars struck with mallets.
The Greek roots
ξύλον
xýlon
wood, timber
φωνή
phōnḗ
voice, sound
Literally: “wood voice”
The story of the word
Coined in 1866, when instruments of wooden bars reached European concert halls from eastern Europe and needed a name a programme could print. Xýlon is plain wood, the stuff of a beam. The same root names xylem, the woody tissue that carries water up a tree, and xylophagous, said of insects that eat it. The marimba, the deeper-voiced cousin, kept an African name instead.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1866
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
xylemxylographytelephonesymphony
In a sentence
A xylophone was the only instrument in the classroom nobody could break.