Ode

How to spell ode

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce ode

What does ode mean?

1. nounA lyric poem, usually formal in tone, written in praise of or addressed to a particular subject.

Ode in a sentence

• The poet read a short ode in praise of the autumn harvest.

• She wrote an ode celebrating the city where she grew up.

Where does ode come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek oide, meaning 'song', which was a contraction of an older form aoide built on the verb aeidein 'to sing'. In ancient Greece an ode was a poem meant to be chanted or sung, often accompanied by music and dance, and it carried a tone of celebration or praise. The term passed into Latin as ode and then into French as ode before reaching English in the late 1500s, where it settled into its modern sense of a dignified lyric poem addressed to a person, thing, or idea. The same singing root survives in relatives such as 'melody', 'rhapsody', and 'parody', all of which hide that Greek word for song. The very short spelling is the trap: it sounds exactly like 'owed', so the silent final 'e' and the lack of a 'w' are what set the poem apart on the page.

How the word is built

• ode (a single root from Greek oide: song; no prefix or suffix)

Words that sound like ode

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• owed: Was obliged to pay or repay money or a debt to someone.