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

• /kɔɹd/^[5]
• UK: /kɔːd/^[5]

chord¹ string; straight line

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

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

Related words

• cord
• accord
• concord
• discord
• yarn
• harpsichord
• clavichord

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)