lyre

From Ancient Greek λύρᾱ (lúrā, “lyre, a stringed instrument with a sounding-board formed of the shell of a tortoise”). Doublet of lira, Lyra, and lyra.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪ.ə/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈlaɪ.ɚ/, /laɪɹ/
• Rhymes: -aɪə(ɹ)
• Homophones: liar, lier, lire

lyre (plural lyres)

2. (music) An ancient stringed musical instrument (a yoke lute chordophone) of Greek origin, consisting of two arms extending from a body to a crossbar (a yoke), and strings, parallel to the soundboard, connecting the body to the yoke.
   1. Any instrument of the same musicological classification; any yoke lute.
3. A lyre-shaped sheet music holder that attaches to a wind instrument when a music stand is impractical.
4. (obsolete) A composer of lyric poetry.

• (a general class of instruments): yoke lute

• Lyra
• lyrebird
• lyrical

• 2012. Kisir and Tanbura. Dahab Khalil and Artur Simon. Pg. 96.
• 2007. Origins and Development of Musical Instruments. Jeremy Montagu. Pg. 128.

lyre (third-person singular simple present lyres, present participle lyring, simple past and past participle lyred)

1. (rare) to play the lyre
   • 1922, Thomas Hardy, “Penance”, in Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses, London: Macmillan and Co., […], →OCLC, page 143:

     Alas, far times ago / A woman lyred here / In the evenfall; one who fain did so / From year to year; / And, in loneliness bending wistfully, / Would wake each note / In sick sad rote, / None to listen or see!

• harp

• “lyre”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “lyre”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• Ryle, rely

From Ancient Greek λύρᾱ (lúrā).

lyre c (singular definite lyren, plural indefinite lyrer)

1. (music) a lyre

From Old Norse ljóri, derived from the same root as lys. Cognates include Norwegian ljore.

lyre c (singular definite lyren, plural indefinite lyrer)

1. (architecture) opening in a roof through which smoke from a fireplace or stove can escape (common during the Iron Age)

• “lyre” in Den Danske Ordbog

• IPA^(key): /liʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

lyre f (plural lyres)

1. lyre
2. (rare) a cutting tool resembling a lyre

• → Romanian: liră
• → Turkish: lir

• “lyre”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

lyre f or m (definite singular lyra or lyren, indefinite plural lyrer, definite plural lyrene)

1. (music) a lyre

• lyer, -yler, ryle, yler

lyre f (definite singular lyra, indefinite plural lyrer, definite plural lyrene)

1. (music) a lyre

• Kraviklyra
• kraviklyre

• IPA^(key): /ˈly.re/

lyre m

1. loss, damage, destruction

Strong a-stem:

• Joseph Bosworth, T. Northcote Toller (1898) “lyre”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, second edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.