psalm
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
n.a holy song or poem used to praise God, especially one from the Bible.
n.a sacred song or lyrical poem used in divine worship, specifically referring to the compositions in the Old Testament Book of Psalms.
Simple“The choir sang a beautiful psalm during the Sunday morning service.”
In context“The congregation stood in silence as the cantor began to recite a well-known psalm of lamentation from the Hebrew Bible.”
- 02 C2 Proficiency
v.to sing or celebrate something using holy songs.
v.to extol or celebrate in psalms; to perform sacred music through singing.
Simple“The ancient texts describe how the people would psalm their thanks after the harvest.”
In context“In the epic poem, the protagonist is depicted psalming his devotion to the heavens amidst the ruins of the temple.”
UsageThis verb is rare in modern speech and is almost exclusively found in older religious texts.
“A proof for God’s existence came to Anselm in the dark of early morning, under the solemn sound of psalms, echoing against the stone walls of the church.”
From Middle English salm or psalme, from Old English psealm, later reinforced from Old French psalme (modern French psaume), both from Latin psalmus, from Ancient Greek ψαλμός (psalmós, “the sound emanating from twitching or twanging perhaps with the hands or fingers, mostly of musical strings”) (from ψάλλω (psállō, “to make a sound by striking, touching, plucking, rubbing, twanging, or vibrating”)), but later in New Testament times the meaning of ψαλμός (psalmós) evolved from its Classical meaning of "a tune played to the harp" to a more general tune that could be played with any instrument; even a song sung with or without musical accompaniment. By the Byzantine Period, it lost all of its instrumental nuances.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.