harmonic
Pronunciation
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
- Of, relating to or marked by harmony in music.[10][4][9]
- Pleasing to the ear; harmonious.[9][2]
- Of or relating to harmonics or overtones.[10][9][2]
- (mathematics) Of numbers whose reciprocals form an arithmetic progression, or of functions expressible as sine and cosine functions.[10][2]
Noun
- An overtone, especially one whose frequency is a whole-number multiple of the fundamental.[4][9][10]
- A flutelike tone produced on a stringed instrument by lightly touching a vibrating string at a node.[9][4]
- (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
- ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ 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
- ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
- ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
- ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
- ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
- ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins