Synth

How to spell synth

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce synth

What does synth mean?

1. nounAn electronic keyboard or device that generates and shapes sound electronically.

Synth in a sentence

• He layered a warm pad from the analogue synth over the drum track.

• The band bought a vintage synth at the second-hand music shop.

Where does synth come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Synth is a twentieth-century shortening of synthesizer, the electronic instrument that creates sound by combining and shaping electrical signals. The longer word traces back to synthesis, borrowed into English in the early 1600s from the Greek synthesis, meaning a putting together or composition. That Greek noun was built from syn, meaning together or with, and tithenai, meaning to place or to put, so a synthesis is literally things placed together. As electronic music equipment spread through the 1960s and 1970s, musicians clipped the bulky synthesizer down to the snappy synth, and the short form became standard in studios and on album sleeves. The spelling keeps the Greek y where many writers expect an i, and it ends in the th cluster that mirrors synthesis, so remembering the parent word is the surest guide to the trap.

How the word is built

• clipping of synthesizer: syn- (together)
• -thes- (from Greek tithenai, to place)
• -izer; shortened to synth