Sunday, May 08, 2005

Words: Lyrics, Psalm

Word origins. "Lyrics" originally meant poems accompanied by a lyre.

"Psalm" comes from the Greek psalmos, to play (or pluck) the harp. My American Heritage College Dictionary has an appendix of "Indo-European Roots". "Pol-" means to touch or shake. Its derivatives include "feel", "palpable", "palpitate" and "psalm".

No comments: