psalm
pronunciation
How to pronounce psalm in British English:
UK [sɑ:m]
How to pronounce psalm in American English:
US [sɑm]
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- Noun:
- any sacred song used to praise the Deity
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- Verb:
- sing or celebrate in psalms
Word Origin
- psalm
- psalm: [OE] The Greek verb psállein originally meant ‘pluck’, but it was extended figuratively to ‘pluck harpstrings’, and hence ‘sing to the accompaniment of the harp’. From it was derived the noun psalmós ‘harp-song’, which was used in the Greek Septuagint to render Hebrew mizmōr ‘song (of the sort sung to the harp by David)’. It passed into Old English via late Latin psalmus. Another derivative of Greek psállein was psaltérion ‘stringed instrument played by plucking’, which has given English psalter [OE] and psaltery [13].
- psalm (n.)
- Old English psealm, salm, partly from Old French psaume, saume, partly from Church Latin psalmus, from Greek psalmos "song sung to a harp," originally "performance on stringed instrument; a plucking of the harp" (compare psaltes "harper"), from psallein "play on a stringed instrument, pull, twitch" (see feel (v.)). Used in Septuagint for Hebrew mizmor "song," especially the sort sung by David to the harp. Related: Psalmodize; psalmody. After some hesitation, the pedantic ps- spelling prevailed in English, as it was in many neighboring languages (German, French, etc.), but English is almost alone in not pronouncing the p-.
Example
- 1. In effect , david ends his psalm by saying , " we 're going to heaven ! "
- 2. Psalm 139:13-16 tells me god created me and my skin .
- 3. One morning she danced past a door that she knew well ; they were singing a psalm inside , and a coffin was being carried out covered with flowers .
- 4. Calvin , she says , when he translated psalm eight , did not write that man was little lower than the angels , but that he was only a little lower than god .
- 5. David is saying in psalm 27 that his relationship with god has the same three effects as light , so he 's not going to be afraid .