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Etymology and origin of the English word chord

English has two words spelled chord: the string, the geometrical line and the anatomical cord, a respelling of cord after Latin; and the musical chord, from a shortening of accord.[1][2][3][4]

Pronunciation

chord1 string; straight line

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1340 before 1340, Rolle's Psalter
Borrowed from
Old French corde via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek χορδή

Etymology

The string is inherited from Middle English corde,[6][1] the word now spelled cord, respelled in the 16th century after its Latin source.[1][7][8][3] The Middle English word is borrowed from Old French corde (“string, rope”),[6][9] from Latin chorda (“gut, string of a musical instrument”),[6][10][9] from Ancient Greek χορδή (khordḗ, “gut, string of gut, string of a lyre”),[6][10][9] which Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary take from Proto-Indo-European *ghere- (“gut, entrail”).[6][9] Klein lists among its relatives Latin hernia (“rupture”) and English yarn.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A string of a musical instrument: before 1340, in Richard Rolle's Psalter, "In psawtry of ten cordis".[1][11]

Semantic evolution

After the respelling, chord was kept for the learned senses and cord for ordinary string and rope;[1][12] Johnson (1755) explained that the word is written cord when it means a rope or string in general, and keeps the h in its original sense of the string of a musical instrument.[12] The first respelled sense was anatomical, a tendon (about 1541),[1][3][6] later extended to cord-like structures such as the vocal and spinal cords (1783), where usage still varies.[1] In geometry the word names the straight line joining the ends of an arc, corde from 1551 and chord from 1570, in Billingsley's translation of Euclid.[3][1] The figurative sense, the emotions seen as strings of an instrument, appears in 1784 or 1785, in Cowper.[1][3][6] Engineering used it for the main members of a truss (before 1877) and aeronautics for the width of a wing (1918).[1]

Timeline

  • before 1340 – cordis, strings of a psaltery, in Rolle.[1][11]
  • c. 1541 – a tendon.[1][6]
  • 1543 – a string-like structure in an animal, in Barnhart.[3][2]
  • 1551 – corde, the straight line joining the ends of an arc.[3]
  • 1570 – chord, the same in geometry.[1][3]
  • 1645 – a string or small rope (now cord).[1]
  • 1783 – vocal, spinal and other chords in anatomy.[1]
  • 1785 – figurative, of the emotions.[1]
  • before 1877 – a member of a truss.[1]
  • 1918 – the chord of an aerofoil.[1]

Meanings

Noun

  1. In geometry, a straight line joining two points on a curve, especially the segment of a secant cut off by the curve.[13][2][1][14]
  2. A feeling or emotional response, the mind being thought of as a stringed instrument: The film touched a chord with older viewers.[15][14][1]
  3. In engineering, either of the two main members of a truss.[13][15][1]
  4. In aeronautics, a straight line joining the leading and trailing edges of an aerofoil, or its length.[14][1][7]
  5. In anatomy, a variant of cord, as in vocal chord.[13][2][1]
  6. (archaic) A string of a musical instrument.[2][1][14]

Word family

  • notochord
  • chordate

chord2 musical notes

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing, Clipping
First attested
1340 Ayenbite of Inwyt
Borrowed from
Old French acorde via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin cor

Etymology

The musical chord is inherited from Middle English cord (“agreement; harmony”),[16][7][1] a shortening of accord,[1][7][2][8] borrowed from Old French acorde (“agreement”),[9][6] from acorder (“to agree, be in harmony”),[9][6] from Vulgar Latin *accordō (“to make agree”), from Latin ad (“to”) and cor (“heart”).[6] The spelling with “ch-” arose from confusion with chord1, the string;[1][17][3][9] Etymonline adds that it may also be a classical correction, and that the English shortening may follow a similar development in French.[6] Wiktionary instead takes the musical sense from cord, the string of an instrument.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Agreement or reconciliation: 1340, in the Ayenbite of Inwyt.[16] The Shorter Oxford notes that this sense is found only in Middle English.[7]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English cord meant agreement, and then harmony of sounds, a sense Barnhart dates to before 1398 and the OED to about 1475.[16][3][1][6] In the late 16th century it became a technical word for two notes sounding together in concord, in Morley's Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597);[1][2] the modern sense, a group of three or more notes sounded together, dates from the 18th century, first recorded in a 1737 translation of Rameau.[1][6][17] The “ch-” spelling is dated about 1600 by Etymonline and to 1608 by Barnhart, while the Oxford Dictionary of English places the change in the 18th century.[6][3][17] Ruskin extended the word to a harmony of colours (1856).[1] The verb, to harmonize, is dated to the 14th century by Merriam-Webster, but the OED records it only from 1866 and suggests it may continue the old verb cord, short for accord.[2][1] In Worcestershire, members of local bands used the verb for instruments in tune with each other.[18]

Timeline

  • 1340 – cord, agreement, reconciliation.[16]
  • before 1398 – cord, musical harmony.[3]
  • c. 1475 – agreement of musical sounds; harmonies.[1]
  • 1597 – two harmonious notes sounded together.[1][2]
  • 1608 – the spelling chord.[3][15]
  • 1737 – three or more notes sounded together.[1]
  • 1856 – a harmonious combination of colours.[1]
  • 1866 – verb, to harmonize.[1]
  • 1879 – to break a chord.[1]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A combination of usually three or more musical notes sounded together: She strummed a minor chord.[2][14][15]
  2. A harmony, as of colours.[14][1]

Verb

  1. To play chords on an instrument, or to play chords as an accompaniment.[2][14][15]
  2. (old-fashioned) To be in harmony; to accord or agree.[2][14][1]

Word family

  • chordal
  • broken chord
  • tetrachord
  • hexachord

Usage notes

The OED notes that for the anatomical senses usage varies between chord and cord,[1] and Collins gives chord as a variant spelling of cord in anatomy.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  15. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  16. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  17. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Chord.” Etymologically, 26 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/chord. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

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