Psalm

How to spell psalm

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce psalm

What does psalm mean?

1. nounA sacred song or hymn, especially one of those collected in the biblical Book of Psalms.

Psalm in a sentence

• The choir sang a familiar psalm at the funeral service.

• Each morning the monks recite a different psalm from memory.

Where does psalm come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word travels back to the Greek psalmos, which meant a song sung to the plucking of a stringed instrument, built on the verb psallein, 'to pluck or twang' (originally the strings of a harp or lyre). When Greek-speaking Jews translated the Hebrew scriptures, they used psalmos to render the sacred songs of King David, and from there it passed into Church Latin as psalmus. Old English borrowed it early, as Christian worship took hold, giving forms such as psealm, and the word has carried its religious sense ever since. The spelling is a faithful museum piece: the initial p- echoes the Greek even though English speakers never pronounce it, and the -l- before the m sits silent too, which is precisely why the word trips up writers who spell by ear. Its close relative 'psalter', the book of psalms, shares the same silent opening.

How the word is built

• psalm (from Greek psalmos: a song sung to harp accompaniment); the silent p- and silent -l- both survive from the Greek and Latin spelling