lira

From Italian lira, from Latin lībra (partly via Turkish lira, Arabic لِيرَة (līra), Maltese lira, Greek λίρα (líra), and Hebrew לִירָה (“lirá”), all of which are originally from the Italian). Doublet of arratel, libbra, Libra, libra, litra, litre, livre, and rottol.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪəɹə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪəɹə

lira (plural lire or lira or liras)

1. The basic unit of currency in Turkey.
2. The currency of Lebanon (also pound), Syria (also pound), Jordan (also dinar)
3. The former currency of Italy, Malta, San Marino, Cyprus and the Vatican City, superseded by the euro

lira (plural lirot or liroth or liras)

1. The former currency of Israel, superseded by the sheqel.

• ₺
• £

From Ukrainian ліра (lira), ultimately related to the Byzantine lyra (Ancient Greek λύρα (lúra)). Doublet of Lyra, lyra, and lyre.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪəɹə/
• Rhymes: -ɪəɹə

lira

1. A Ukrainian folk musical instrument similar to the hurdy-gurdy.

From Latin līra (“furrow”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪɹə/
• Rhymes: -aɪɹə
• Homophones: lyra, Lyra

lira (plural lirae)

1. Any of a set of fine ridges on the shells of some molluscs

lira

1. Alternative form of lyra.
   • 1940, Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., page 275:

     The first evidence of the Byzantine lira is in a Persian literary source of the ninth century.

   • 1976, Musicological Annual, page 118:

     Some instruments comprise types which are found, more or less unchanged, also with various nations and periods (recorder, shawm), whereas others belong to smaller regions (byzantine lira, rectangular harp) or only to the territory of Serbia and Macedonia (drums, larger shawms, especially in the Turkish period).

   • 1977, Laurence Wright, “The Medieval Gittern and Citole: A Case of Mistaken Identity”, in The Galpin Society Journal:

     Being an approximate synonym of cithara, the word lyra is most often applied to the harp, but one also finds it interpreted as the Germanic lyre, Byzantine lira (equated in turn with the Arabic rebab), hurdy-gurdy, citole or gittern, lute, etc.

• Lair, aril, lair, lari, liar, rail, rial

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ˈli.ɾə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈli.ɾa]
• Rhymes: -iɾa

From Latin libra.

lira f (plural lires)

1. lira (currency)

• lliura

Borrowed from Latin lyra, from Ancient Greek λύρα (lúra). First attested in the 15th century.^[1]

lira f (plural lires)

1. lyre (an ancient stringed musical instrument)

• líric
• lírica

• “lira”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “lira” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “lira” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Inherited from Proto-Bantu *-dɪ̀da.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɽi.ɽa/

-lira (infinitive kulíra)

1. to cry
2. to weep
3. to wail, bewail
4. to sob
5. to mourn
6. to produce noise (of an animal e.g. bleating)
7. to yelp
8. to chirr
9. to clang
10. to croak
11. to ring (e.g. phone)
12. to sound
13. to seep through
14. to toll, to knell (of a bell)
15. to desire
16. to demand
17. to need

• Verbal derivations:
  • Applicative: -lirira
  • Causative: -liritsa
  • Negative: -salira
  • Reduplicative: -liralira
  • Repetitive: -liranso
  • Other formations: -lira maliro (“to mourn”)

• Nominal derivations:
  • maliro (“corpse, funeral”)

• Steven Paas (2016) Oxford Chichewa-English/English - Chichewa Dictionary‎^[1], Oxford University Press, page 263

Borrowed from Italian lira, from Latin lībra.^[1]

• IPA^(key): [ˈlɪra]
• Rhymes: -ɪra
• Hyphenation: li‧ra
• Homophone: lyra

lira f

1. lira (former currency of Italy) [19th c.]
2. lira (currency of Turkey)
3. lira (former currency of Israel)

• “lira”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “lira”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989

• Audio:

  (file)

lira

1. third-person singular future of lire

• rail

• IPA^(key): /ˈli.ra/
• Rhymes: -ira
• Hyphenation: lì‧ra

From Latin lībra.

lira f (plural lire)

1. lira

• Turkish: lira

From Latin lyra, from Ancient Greek λύρᾱ (lúrā).

lira f (plural lire)

1. lyre

   Synonym: cetra

   • 1959, Indro Montanelli, “Capitolo tredicesimo: Licurgo [Thirteenth Chapter: Lykourgos]”, in Storia dei Greci [History of the Greeks], 39th edition, Milan, published 1973, page 119:

     Dopo Terpandro venne Timoteo, che tentò di perfezionare la lira portandone le corde da sette a undici.

     After Terpander came Timotheus, who tried to perfect the lyre increasing the number of its strings from seven to eleven.

• Arli, lari

From Proto-Italic *loizā, from Proto-Indo-European *lóyseh₂ (“following, track; furrow”),^[1] from *leys- (“track, furrow, trace, trail”).

Cognate with Oscan feminine ablative plural 𐌋𐌖𐌉𐌔𐌀𐌓𐌉𐌚𐌔 (luisarifs, the name of a month, perhaps "in which the furrows are drawn"), Old High German leisa (“track”) (German Gleis), Old Church Slavonic лѣха (lěxa, “field bed, furrow”), Old Prussian lyso (“field bed”), Proto-Germanic *lizaną (“to know, understand”), *laizijaną (“teach”), *liʀnōn (“learn”).^[2]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈliː.ra]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈliː.ra]

līra f (genitive līrae); first declension^[3]

1. the earth thrown up between two furrows, a ridge
2. (agriculture) furrow

First-declension noun.

• “lira”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• "lira", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• lira in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Doublet of lire.

lira m (definite singular liraen, indefinite plural liraar or liraer or lira, definite plural liraane or liraene)

1. (numismatics) lira (currency of Malta)
2. (numismatics) lira (currency of Turkey)

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

lira f

1. definite singular of lire
2. definite singular of lire

• “lira” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From Proto-Germanic *lihwizô, *ligwizô (“thigh; groin”), from Proto-Indo-European *lekʷs-, *lewks- (“groin”). More at lire.

• IPA^(key): /ˈliː.rɑ/

līra m (nominative plural līran)

1. fleshy part of the body without fat or bone; brawn; muscle

Weak:

• līreht
• spearlīra

• lēow

• Middle English: lire, lyre
  • English: lire

• IPA^(key): /ˈli.ra/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ira
• Syllabification: li‧ra

Learned borrowing from Latin lyra, from Ancient Greek λύρα (lúra).

lira f

1. lyre (stringed musical instrument)
2. black grouse's tail

Borrowed from Maltese lira, from Italian lira, from Latin lībra.

lira f

1. (historical) lira (former unit of currency of Malta)

Borrowed from Turkish lira, from Italian lira, from Latin lībra.

lira f

1. lira (currency of Turkey)

• lira in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• lira in Polish dictionaries at PWN

• Rhymes: -iɾɐ

Borrowed from Latin lyra.

lira f (plural liras)

1. lyre (a stringed musical instrument)

Borrowed from Italian lira, from Latin lībra.

lira f (plural liras)

1. lira (unit of currency)

Borrowed from Latin lyra, from Ancient Greek λύρα (lúra).

• IPA^(key): /lîːra/
• Hyphenation: li‧ra

lȋra f (Cyrillic spelling ли̑ра)

1. lyre

• “lira”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025

From Old French lire, from Latin lyra.

• IPA^(key): /líːra/

lȋra f

1. lyre (musical instrument)

The diacritics used in this section of the entry are non-tonal. If you are a native tonal speaker, please help by adding the tonal marks.

Feminine, a-stem
nom. sing.	líra
gen. sing.	líre
	singular	dual	plural
nominative (imenovȃlnik)	líra	líri	líre
genitive (rodȋlnik)	líre	lír	lír
dative (dajȃlnik)	líri	lírama	líram
accusative (tožȋlnik)	líro	líri	líre
locative (mẹ̑stnik)	líri	lírah	lírah
instrumental (orọ̑dnik)	líro	lírama	lírami

• IPA^(key): /ˈliɾa/ [ˈli.ɾa]
• Rhymes: -iɾa
• Syllabification: li‧ra

From Latin lyra, from Ancient Greek λύρα (lúra).

lira f (plural liras)

1. lyre
2. (Mexico, slang) guitar

Borrowed from Italian lira, from Latin libra. Doublet of libra.

lira f (plural liras)

1. lira (former currency of Italy)

• “lira”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

lira (present lirar, preterite lirade, supine lirat, imperative lira)

1. (colloquial) to play (a sport, an instrument or a game)

• lir

• ilar, liar

Borrowed from Spanish lira (“lyre”), from Latin lyra, from Ancient Greek λύρα (lúra).

• (Standard Tagalog) IPA^(key): /ˈliɾa/ [ˈliː.ɾɐ]
• Rhymes: -iɾa
• Syllabification: li‧ra

lira (Baybayin spelling ᜎᜒᜇ)

1. lyre

• kudyapi

Borrowed from Spanish lira (“lira”), from Latin libra. Doublet of libra.

• (Standard Tagalog) IPA^(key): /ˈliɾa/ [ˈliː.ɾɐ]
• Rhymes: -iɾa
• Syllabification: li‧ra

lira (Baybayin spelling ᜎᜒᜇ)

1. lira (former currency of Italy)

• (Standard Tagalog) IPA^(key): /ˈliɾaʔ/ [ˈliː.ɾɐʔ]
• Rhymes: -iɾaʔ
• Syllabification: li‧ra

lirà (Baybayin spelling ᜎᜒᜇ)

1. swollen and reddened eyelids

• lirain

• iral, rali

Inherited from Ottoman Turkish لیره, لیرا, from Italian lira, from Latin lībra.

• IPA^(key): [l̠ʲí.ɾä]
• Hyphenation: li‧ra

lira (definite accusative lirayı, plural liralar)

1. lira (currency of Turkey)

   Türk lirası ― the Turkish lira

2. livre, pound

   Mısır lirası ― the Egyptian pound

• liralık

• liret (“Italian lira”), İtalyan lireti