harmonic

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin harmonicus,^[2][3][4][5] from Ancient Greek ἁρμονικός (harmonikós, “skilled in music, musical”),^[2][6][7] from ἁρμονία (harmonía), the source of harmony.^[2][3][7] In Greek the neuter plural ἁρμονικά (harmoniká) was used as a noun for the theory of music.^[2][5] Barnhart suggests that the English word may be a back-formation from the earlier armonicall (before 1500), influenced by, and sometimes borrowed from, Middle French harmonique,^[8] which the OED records in French from the 14th century.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Relating to music, musical; of ancient music, relating to melody as opposed to rhythm: 1570, in Levens's Manipulus Vocabulorum.^[2][4][8] Etymonline dates the word to the 1560s.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The general musical sense is now obsolete except in particular uses.^[2][5] From 1661 the word referred to harmony as distinct from melody and rhythm,^[2] and in 1667, in Milton, it described notes sounding together pleasingly.^[2][7] Mathematics took it up in 1706 for quantities whose reciprocals form an arithmetic progression,^[2] and physics later used it for a simple periodic motion like that of a vibrating string (1867).^[2] The plural harmonics, the theory of musical sounds, is recorded from 1702 in the OED and 1709 in Barnhart.^[2][8] The noun for an overtone, short for harmonic tone, dates from 1777,^[7][4] and the adjective was applied to such overtones by 1832.^[2] The noun also names a component frequency of a complex wave.^[4][9]

Timeline

• c. 1500 – armonical, tuneful, harmonious.^[7][8]
• 1570 – relating to music; of ancient music, relating to melody.^[2][4]
• 1661 – relating to harmony as distinct from melody and rhythm.^[2]
• 1667 – sounding together pleasingly; harmonious.^[2]
• 1702 – harmonics, the theory of musical sounds.^[2]
• 1706 – in mathematics, of quantities whose reciprocals are in arithmetic progression.^[2]
• 1777 – noun, an overtone.^[7][4]
• 1832 – of tones produced by the vibration of part of a sounding body.^[2]
• 1867 – simple harmonic motion.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, relating to or marked by harmony in music.^[10][4][9]
2. Pleasing to the ear; harmonious.^[9][2]
3. Of or relating to harmonics or overtones.^[10][9][2]
4. (mathematics) Of numbers whose reciprocals form an arithmetic progression, or of functions expressible as sine and cosine functions.^[10][2]

Noun

1. An overtone, especially one whose frequency is a whole-number multiple of the fundamental.^[4][9][10]
2. A flutelike tone produced on a stringed instrument by lightly touching a vibrating string at a node.^[9][4]
3. (physics) A component of a periodic wave whose frequency is a whole-number multiple of the fundamental frequency.^[10][4][9]

Word family

• harmonically
• harmonicalness
• anharmonic
• disharmonic
• enharmonic
• inharmonic
• nonharmonic
• subharmonic

Related words

• harmonica
• philharmonic
• harmony
• harmonious
• harmonium

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
10. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins