Harmony

How to spell harmony

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce harmony

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does harmony mean?

1. nounA state of peaceful agreement or pleasing combination between people, things, or elements.
2. nounThe combination of musical notes sounded together to produce a pleasing effect.

Harmony in a sentence

• The two departments worked in perfect harmony on the merger.

• The choir added rich harmony beneath the lead vocal line.

• The garden's colours create a sense of harmony that calms visitors.

• She studied four-part harmony during her second year at the conservatory.

Where does harmony come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word descends from the Greek harmonia, which literally meant a fastening, a joint, or a fitting together of parts, built on the verb harmozein, 'to fit or join'. In ancient Greek music it came to describe the orderly arrangement of sounds, and the philosophers extended it to the agreeable proportion of any well-ordered whole. Latin took it in as harmonia, and Old French passed it along as harmonie, which English borrowed in the late 1300s. Early English use already covered both the musical sense of pleasing combined notes and the broader sense of peaceful agreement between people. A handy memory aid is that the spelling keeps the single 'm' and the unstressed 'o' in the middle, mirroring the original harmon- root rather than any doubled letters.

How the word is built

• harmon- (from Greek harmonia: a joining, agreement)
• -y (noun suffix)