psalm means A sacred song; a poetical composition for use in the praise or worship of God. It carries an Arena rating of 1588, earned across 11 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, psalm ranks #1,470 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #3,021 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #3,198 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #3,313 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words.
psalm is pronounced /sɑːm/.
Why “psalm” is a great word
A sacred song or hymn, particularly one of the biblical poems from the Book of Psalms. From Middle English salm/psalme, via Old English psealm and Old French psalme, from Latin psalmus, tracing back to Ancient Greek ψαλμός (psalmós, "sound from plucking strings, a song to the harp") and ultimately ψάλλω (psállō, "to pluck, to play a stringed instrument"). Unlike "hymn," which suggests the standardized, communal song of a congregation, or "canticle," which draws its text from biblical books beyond the Psalter, a psalm carries the specific resonance of strings once plucked—the voice of a solitary soul addressing the divine. It is the vibration of a gut-string under a calloused thumb, the creak of a monastic choir stall at Matins, and the particular hush that falls when a reader speaks aloud "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord"—the persistent human conviction that suffering and praise can both be tuned to the oldest music: one hand plucking strings, the other holding on.
Etymology
From Middle English salm or psalme, from Old English psealm, later reinforced from Old French psalme (modern French psaume), both from Latin psalmus, from Ancient Greek ψαλμός (psalmós, “the sound emanating from twitching or twanging perhaps with the hands or fingers, mostly of musical strings”) (from ψάλλω (psállō, “to make a sound by striking, touching, plucking, rubbing, twanging, or vibrating”)), but later in New Testament times the meaning of ψαλμός (psalmós) evolved from its Classical meaning of "a tune played to the harp" to a more general tune that could be played with any instrument; even a song sung with or without musical accompaniment. By the Byzantine Period, it lost all of its instrumental nuances.
noun
- A sacred song; a poetical composition for use in the praise or worship of God.
- One of the hymns by David and others, collected into one book of the Old Testament, or a modern metrical version of such a hymn for public worship.
verb
- To extol in psalms; to make music; to singe.g.“to psalm his praises.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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