Once Upon a Word: A Word-Origin Dictionary for Kids - Jess Zafarris 2020
Now That’s an Earful!
Word play
Music is a language we can all appreciate, no matter what country or culture it originates from. Even if you can’t understand the words to a song in another language, you can enjoy how it sounds or the way it inspires you to move!
The word “music” was adopted from the Old French musique. It originally comes from the Greek phrase mousike techne, or “the art of the Muses.” The Muses were Greek goddesses who inspired people to create music, poetry, art, stories, and other inventions. Music and poetry were thought to be some of the most important work of the muses.
Listening to new music is a fun way to experience different cultures. It’s also a peek at magical sounds that vibrate around the world. The best part about music? The more we learn about it, the more we want to know.
Alto: Originally a word describing a high, male singing voice. This is now a word to describe the lower ranges of women’s singing voices. It comes from the Latin altus, meaning “high” or “grown tall.”
Aria: A song in an opera with one person singing. It’s from the Italian aria, or arietta, meaning “air.” The name refers to a light, simple style of playing and performing—like air.
Banjo: A musical instrument that looks like a circular, long-necked guitar. Probably named after the similar African instrument called the mbanza. It’s also possible it was named after or influenced by a type of Portuguese instrument called a bandore or bandurra that also had a similar shape. In 1764, Thomas Jefferson wrote about a banjo but called it a “banjar.”
Baritone: A male singing or speaking voice lower than a tenor but higher than a bass, from the Greek barytonos, meaning “deep-toned” or “heavy-sounding.”
Bass: The deepest or lowest sound range in music, from the Latin word bassus, meaning “short” or “low.”
Blues: The blues is an American music style that expresses sadness and melancholy (just like when you’re “feeling blue”). It is inspired by African American spirituals and lived experiences. Part of the defining sound are the “blue notes” or “worried notes” that sound sad, giving the song that “blue” emotion.
Choir: First spelled queor and originally a word for the part of a church where the singers stood during services. It comes from the Latin chorus, meaning a group of singers. The current meaning became common in English around the year 1400.
Chord: Two or more notes played at the same time to make a new, blended sound. It’s a shortening of the word “accord,” or an agreement. The word corde is also a Middle English word (chorda in Latin) for the string of a musical instrument, which probably influenced the meaning of the word.
Clarinet: A woodwind instrument with an opening shaped like a bell. It’s from the French clarinette, meaning “little bell,” originally from the Latin clarus, meaning “clear” or “bright.”
Crescendo: An increase in the loudness of a song or musical piece, originally from the Latin crescere, “to grow or increase.”
Cymbals: Brass plates that make a ringing sound when they’re crashed together. It originally comes from the Greek word kymbe, meaning “bowl” or “cup.”
Glockenspiel: An instrument similar to a xylophone, but with steel bars instead of the xylophone’s wooden bars. It was originally fashioned as a set of bells of different sizes. The term is adopted from German and translates to “play of bells.”
Guitar: From the French word guitare, originally from the Greek word kithara, a similar instrument with a triangular body and seven strings. It’s possible that it is originally from the Persian sihtar, another similar instrument.
Harmony: A collection of musical sounds played together to make chords. Although it was adopted from French, it originally came from the Greek harmonia, meaning “joining” or “agreement.”
Hip-Hop: A musical style named for its rhythm and lyrical bars. It was developed by African American, Latino, and Caribbean communities in the Bronx, New York, in the 1970s.
Lyrics: The words to a song. This word was originally a name for a type of poem, adopted from the Middle French lyrique, written to be played as a song. In Latin, lyricus specifically meant one that could be accompanied by the musical instrument called a lyre.
Melody: The melody of a song is the main part of it (the part you might hum when thinking about the song). This is compared to the harmony, which blends with the melody. It’s also a word for any pleasant tune. It comes from the Greek meloidia, meaning “a singing,” “a choral song,” or a tune that goes with a lyric poem.
Opera: A musical play in which all of the actors sing, from the Latin operari, meaning “to work.”
Orchestra: Today, this is a word for a collection of people playing instruments, or the area where they play beside a stage. In the 1600s and earlier, it was the area where a chorus of dancers would perform. It comes from the Greek orkheisthai, meaning “to dance.”
Piano: Originally called a pianoforte, it literally meant “soft loud.” This instrument started out as a more complex version of the harpsichord. When it was invented around 1700, its inventor, Bartolomeo Cristofori, called it by the full Italian name, gravicembalo col piano e forte, meaning “harpsichord with soft and loud.”
Reggae: “The Reggay” was a dance style popular in Jamaica until 1968, when a song by the band Toots and the Maytals led to it becoming its own musical genre. The word may come from the term rege-rege, meaning “a protest” or “an argument.”
Rhythm: From the Greek rhythmos, which meant “measured flow or movement,” or “symmetry.”
Saxophone: A woodwind instrument with a reed and a brass body. It comes from the name of its Belgian inventor, Adolphe Sax, plus the Greek phonos, meaning “sounding.”
Soprano: The highest range of all singing voices. It means “high” in Italian, from the Latin super, meaning “above” or “over.”
Symphony: A long musical composition usually played by an orchestra. It was originally a word for any assortment of musical instruments played together. The English word is from the Old French simphonie, meaning “musical harmony.” Originally, it was from the Greek symphonos, meaning “harmonious” or “agreeing in sound.”
Tempo: The speed of music, from the Italian word tempo, meaning “time.” It is originally from the Latin tempus, meaning “time” or “season.”
Tenor: A higher male singing voice, compared to baritone and bass. Adopted from the Old French tenor, a word for “meaning” or “substance.” This word was given to the tenor voices because they usually sang the main melody of a song in medieval music.
Treble: The higher tones of sound. It’s from the Old French treble, meaning “a third part.” In medieval music, the treble was the third part above the melody, which was performed in the tenor range.
Violin: An earlier version of the “violin” was called a viola da braccio, or “violin of the arm.” This is because the bow looks like an extension of the arm. Its name comes from Vitula, a Roman goddess of joy. Her name is related to the Latin vitulari, meaning “to be joyful.”
SONG EXPLORATION
Finally, let’s take a look at the lyrics of the song “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
This popular song is sung to the same tune as the song “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and the alphabet song.
That tune comes from an earlier French folk song called “Ah! vous dirais-je Maman,” or “Oh! Shall I Tell You Mommy,” about a child who wants candy. The famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart made the French tune even more popular by creating new versions of it in the 1780s. The lyrics we know today were written by poet and novelist Jane Taylor in 1806.
Take a look at the lyrics in the first verse of the song, and explore the origins below:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Diamond: The word “diamond” refers to a very hard gemstone. It is derived from the Greek adamas, meaning “the hardest metal,” or what we call “adamantium” in English. Adamantium is a legendary metal, supposedly the hardest substance in existence. You may recognize it if you’re familiar with the X-Men superhero franchise, but adamantium appeared in fictional stories during or before the Middle Ages, many centuries before the X-Men were created. While diamond is a gemstone, it was given the name as well because it is the hardest known natural material.
Sky: This word was adopted from Old Norse, and it originally meant “cloud.” Before that, the word for sky was heofon, or “heaven.”
Star: Spelled steorra in Old English, this is a very old word with a Proto-Germanic root that also meant “star.”
Twinkle: Stars seem to twinkle or sparkle and change in brightness in the night sky. That’s because Earth’s moving atmosphere makes the light from the star shift and refract as the planet turns. The word comes from the Old English twincan, meaning “to wink” or “to blink.”
Wonder: A wonder is something marvelous and amazing. “Wonder” comes from the Old English wundrian, meaning “to be astonished” or “to admire.”