Ever wonder how the word “orchestra” evolved to mean both the location of the best seats in a theater and a large group of musicians who play together? You may consider yourself a “maestro” of arts and literature information after you have read this chapter.

A cappella

This musical term, meaning “without accompaniment,” comes from the Frenchman Martin of Tours. Around the year 326, 10-year-old Martin rejected the gods of ancient Rome to follow the beliefs of the growing Christian church. Martin later became a missionary in Gaul and, in 360, founded the first monastery there. Regarded as a holy man and a miracle worker, Martin was honored as a saint after his death. The chief officials of Gaul placed his cloak, considered a holy relic, in a small room in his church. The room became known as the capella, which is Latin for “little cloak.” The guardian of the cloak became the capellanus. Religious services were held in the capella. While there was singing, no musical instruments were used in the capella. For this type of music, the Italians coined the phrase a capella, meaning “in chapel style.” Other languages quickly borrowed the phrase to mean singing without musical accompaniment. The French later adapted capella and capellanus to chapelle and chapelain. In English, the words became chapel and chaplain.

Gaul refers to the area of present-day France, and parts of western Germany, northern Italy, and Belgium. The Romans under Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, which was inhabited chiefly by Celts, in the Gallic Wars (58–51 b.c.)

Alphabet

Unlike the English language, which uses a sound to represent each letter, the Greek language had a name for each of its letters. Appropriately, the Greeks combined the names of the first two letters of their alphabet—alpha (“a”) and beta (“b”)—to form alphabetos, the name they gave to their entire body of letters. English later adapted alphabetos to “alphabet.”

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of works from many authors. This definition, however, understates the very descriptive literal translation of the term—“gathering of flowers or a bouquet of flowers”—from the Greek words anthos, meaning “flower,” and legein, meaning “to gather.”

Applaud

In ancient Rome, most comedies ended with an actor turning to the audience with the request “Plaudite!” (“Clap!”). The Latin verb plaudere originally meant “to strike” or “to beat.” However, to more closely express the later meaning of striking one’s hands together or clapping, the Romans prefixed their request with the Latin preposition ad, meaning “to,” to create Applaudite! On occasion, an actor experienced a different type of clapping. If the spectators did not approve of his performance, they would explaudere or “clap him out of” the stage. Explode, an English derivative of explaudere, retained this ancient meaning until as late as the 17th century.

Artist

An artist is someone who is skilled in the fine arts—painting, music, sculpture, dancing, and poetry. The term comes from the Latin noun ars meaning “skill,” “knowledge,” or “profession.”

Known as one of the greatest artists of all time, Leonardo da Vinci gave definition to the term “Renaissance man” by being a painter, sculptor, mathematician, scientist, and inventor.

Calligraphy

“Calligraphy” means “the art of beautiful writing.” It traces its origin to kalos (Greek for “beautiful”) and graphein (Greek for “to write”).

Chiaroscuro

In art, chiaroscuro refers to how an artist treats light and shadow in a painting. Usually the contrast between the two areas is very pronounced. Many works by the renowned Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci feature this technique. “Chiaroscuro” is a combination of two Italian words, chiaro, meaning “bright,” and oscuro, meaning “dark.”

Easel

What do an easel and a donkey have in common? Ezel is Dutch for “donkey.” It seemed natural to 17th-century Dutch painters to share the word for an animal that was accustomed to standing and bearing many burdens with the name of the three-legged stand that holds a painting.

Encyclopedia

An encyclopedia is a set of books that provides information about many branches of knowledge. The word comes from three Greek words—the preposition en (“in”) and the nouns kyklos (“circle”) and paideia (“education”). Tradition credits English statesman and scholar Thomas Elyot with coining the term in the early 1500s. Elyot was known for his keen interest in promoting the study of ancient Greek literature.

Epigram

Epigrams are witty and sarcastic short poems. The word is actually a combination of two Greek words: the preposition epi, meaning “at” or “upon,” and the verb graphein, meaning “to write.” Other English derivatives of graphein are graphic (“of or relating to something written”) and telegraph (“a communications system connected by wire that sends out and receives messages”).

Comedy, in ancient Greece, dates to the sixth century b.c. The earliest comedy is Aristophanes’ Acharnians.

Gargoyle

To decorate the cathedrals of medieval Europe, stonecutters carved grotesque heads of imaginary animals and detested political and religious figures and affixed them to rain gutters high above the ground. These heads caught the draining rainwater, which then spewed out from their huge open mouths. “Gargoyle” traces its roots to the Old French gargouille, meaning “throat,” which is from the Latin noun gurgulio, meaning “windpipe” or “gullet.” In later times, gargoyles became more decorative as greater emphasis was placed on the design rather than on the head’s original purpose as a waterspout. Gargouille is also the root of the word gargle.

Glossary

Magazines and books that focus on a specific topic often include a brief section that provides a list of important words and their definitions. “Glossary” became a title for this type of section. It traces its origin to the Greek noun glossa, which first meant “tongue,” and then also “language” or “word.” The English language later adopted and adapted the term to mean “a collection of explanations.”

Incunabula

“Incunabula” refers to the first stages of anything. The word most often refers to books printed before 1500. The Germans coined the term, using the Latin noun incunabula, meaning “swaddling clothes.” To trace its roots a bit further, incunabula is itself a combination of two Latin words, the preposition in (“in”) and the noun cunabula (“cradle”).

India ink

India ink is a solid black pigment that is mixed with a gelatin-type substance and dried into cakes or sticks. India ink was actually invented in China. After the 17th-century English government official Samuel Pepys used the expression “India ink” in his now-famous Diary to refer to deep black ink, the phrase was adopted into the English language.

Italics

Francesco Griffo, the typecutter for Italian printer-publisher Aldus Manutius, first used a special slant-style typeface in 1501 for an edition of the works of the ancient Roman poet Virgil. The edition was dedicated in Italy, Virgil’s birthplace, so the new typeface came to be known as italics, Latin for “pertaining to Italy.” “Italics” is still used to refer to a typeface with slanted letters.

Both the Divine Comedy by Italian poet Dante Alighieri and Paradise Lost by English poet John Milton were modeled on Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid.

Kabuki

Kabuki theater is a traditional popular entertainment in Japan. Its name—written using three modern Japanese characters—explains its form. Ka means “song,” bu means “dance,” and ki means “skill.” Using elaborate costumes and staging, kabuki actors sing, dance, and perform in mime. This form of Japanese theater began in the late 1500s. Actors might stop a performance to address the audience. In turn, the audience answers or claps their hands according to a set of rules governing this behavior. Plays used to last an entire day.

Kindergarten

In 1837, German teacher Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel coined the term “kindergarten” for the school he started for young children. Froebel’s curriculum stressed the importance of play, family, pleasant surroundings, and nature. To name his school—the first of its kind—Froebel combined two German words, kinder (“children”) and garten (“garden”).

“Kindergarten” was also the name given to a group of young Oxford University students who aided British government official Alfred Milner in the reconstruction of South Africa following the Boer War (1899–1902).

Letter

Romans used the term littera to refer to the individual letters of their alphabet. They used the plural form of that word, litterae, to describe a letter written to another person. As littera passed through the centuries and was adopted by several European languages, its form was altered to conform to each country’s spelling and speaking. But the variations in meaning between the singular and the plural forms were lost. In English, “letter” refers both to an individual alphabet letter and to a written message.

Maestro

Through the centuries, many Italian composers have been recognized internationally as outstanding musicians. Since most also taught or worked with the musicians who performed their works, they were called maestros, or “teachers.” Today “maestro” is used to refer to masters in their area of music.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the greatest maestros of all time, was born in Salzburg, Austria, on January 27, 1756. Reports indicate that when a cloth was placed on a harpsichord’s keys, Mozart could place his hands under the cloth and play with the same precision and speed as if no cloth had been there.

Meter

Epic poems and other forms of poetry are usually written in meter, which means that the words in each line are carefully chosen and arranged to produce systematic and measured rhythms. Rhythms can be repeated, alternated, or changed completely to provide variety. “Meter” is derived from the Greek metron, meaning “a measure” or “a standard.”

Musical terms in Italian

Ever look at a page of sheet music and wondered what the “foreign” words found on the page mean? Known as musical directions, they are Italian words that tell the musician how the composer wants a section to be played. Some examples of this musical vocabulary and their English translations include:

al fine: continue to the end of a repeated section

allegretto: moderately fast

allegro: lively

andante: moderate in tempo

a tempo: in the original time (that is, before a change was indicated)

crescendo: gradually increasing in loudness

forte: loud

legato: smooth

lento: slow

lento molto: very slow

piano: soft

presto: quick

rallentando: gradually slower

rapidamente: quickly

scherzando: in a playful manner

staccato: in a disconnected manner

tranquillo: calm

Opera

“Opera” is actually the Latin plural form of opus, meaning “work.” The first musical drama was given the Italian name opera in musica, meaning “works in music.” In time, the phrase was abbreviated. “Opera” now refers to a play whose texts—solos, duets, choruses, and so on—are set to music.

Orchestra

The ancient Greeks referred to the semicircular area in front of the stage as the orchestra. There, the chorus, which played a key role in Greek drama, would stand and sometimes dance. The Romans adapted the Greek theater to their own needs and reserved the orchestra area as seating for senators. By the 1500s, in England, playgoers were sitting in the orchestra area. At the same time, in France, the area was reserved for musicians. The English language borrowed both uses. Today, “orchestra” refers to both the best seats in a theater and to a large group of musicians that plays together.

Palette

To arrange and mix their paints, artists commonly use a palette, a thin board that sometimes has a hole at one end so it can be held with the thumb. The word comes from the Latin noun pala, meaning “spade” or “shovel.”

Paragraph

In ancient Greece, punctuation marks did not exist. One letter followed another with no spaces between the words. To help readers, the Greeks adopted the practice of placing a short horizontal mark under the first word in the line where a new thought occurred. They called this line a paragraphos from their words para, meaning “beside,” and graphein, meaning “to write.” In English, “paragraph” is used to denote a subdivision of a chapter, an essay, or the like.

Philosophy

Philosophy refers to a particular system of principles for the conduct of life. A philosopher is one who studies or is an expert in philosophy. By origin, both “philosopher” and “philosophy” come from two Greek adjectives that imply a love of wisdom and knowledge: philos (“loving”) and sophos (“wise”).

Piano

When Bartolomeo Cristofori sought a name for his newly invented musical instrument about 1700, he chose the Italian phrase piano e forte, “soft and loud.” He believed the characteristic feature of his invention was its ability to produce both soft and loud notes. These Italian words trace their origin to the Latin term planus et fortis, meaning “plain and strong.” Today’s simplified version—“piano”—has lost much of its original significance.

Plagiarism

There are strict laws against plagiarism, which is the disreputable act of using the works of another as one’s own writing. Those who coined the term in ancient times used as its root the Latin noun plagiarius, meaning “a kidnapper.”

Prima donna

This Italian phrase means “first lady” and is used to refer to the principal female singer in an opera or concert. The English language adopted the phrase and gave it the same meaning. The phrase is often used sarcastically to denote someone considered arrogant, vain, or very self-willed.

The first prima donna to gain the affection of the Phantom of the Opera on screen was May Philbin. She starred in the 1925 silent film of the story.

Print

“Print” comes from the Latin verb premere (“to press”) and its participle pressus (“pressed”), since a printed letter is actually a mark pressed onto something. Press, which can be used both as a noun and a verb, also clearly derives from pressus, as do several other English words with Latin prefixes, such as compress (“to press together”), depress (“to press or push down”), and impress (“to press on” or “to affect strongly”).

Protagonist

In ancient Greece, every actor was evaluated according to ability and then ranked as a protagonist, deuteragonist, and tritagonist. The prefix told the actor’s position: protos means “first,” deuteros means “second,” and tri translates to “three.” The “agonist” in each of the rankings traces its origin to the Greek agein, meaning “to lead.” From agein came agon, which referred to a place into which men are led. In time, agon represented the great assemblies where the Olympic games and athletic and dramatic contests were held. The Greek noun agonia referred to the contest or struggle between the competitors or actors. The Greeks combined agonia with the appropriate prefix to classify the actors who performed on stage before an audience. The Greeks also used the prefix anti (“against”) with agonia to form antagonist, which means “an adversary or opponent” in English.

Pupil

“Pupil” traces its origins to the Latin words pupus and pupa, meaning respectively “boy” and “girl” and making an appropriate term for “a student.” Since the Romans considered a little girl and a doll somewhat similar, they used pupa for both. The Romans also noticed that when you look into the center portion of a person’s eye, you see reflected a small doll-like image of yourself. They called this area of the eye pupula, “a little girl” or “a little doll.” Two other English words that trace their roots directly to pupula are puppet (“an animated doll-like figure”) and puppy (“a young dog”).

Rehearse

The English word “rehearse” comes from the Latin word hirpex, meaning “a large rake.” Since actors practice their parts again and again until they have mastered their lines and stage movements much the same as farmers rake their fields to prepare for cultivation, a combination of the Latin prefix re (“back” or “again”) with a variation of herce (which is the French form of hirpex ) were used to form “rehearse.”

Sabbatical

In the field of higher education, a sabbatical refers to the leave of absence a professor may take. According to an old Hebrew custom, every seven years farmers were supposed to allow their fields a year’s rest. Shabath was the Hebrew term for “rest” and referred to the seventh and holiest day of the week. Jews observe this period beginning at sundown Friday and ending at sundown Saturday (today’s Sabbath). This practice followed the passage in the Bible telling how God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. See also jubilee.

Schedule

In ancient times, the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans used strips of the pith (interior) of the papyrus plant to form sheets of writing material. The Romans called the leaf of the papyrus plant scheda, a derivative of which was used to form the word schedula, Latin for a “small piece of papyrus paper.” Scheda is a derivative of the Greek noun schide (“a split piece of wood”) and the Greek verb schizein (“to split”). When scheda entered English, both its spelling and meaning changed, although not completely. The frequently used expression “on schedule” implies that someone or something has completed what has been written on a sheet of paper known as a timetable or a schedule.

Julius Caesar hired the mathematician Sosigenes to bring the incorrect calendar of his time into correspondence with the seasons. The new calendar had 365 days and was based on the Egyptian calendar. It also subtracted one day from February every four years—making what we now know as leap year.

School

“School” traces its roots to a Latin noun with the same meaning, schola. The Romans borrowed the Greek noun schole, referring to a group of young men who studied with a philosopher. The Greeks chose schole, meaning “leisure,” because only those who did not have to work could afford to study.

Scribe

Using the verb scribere (“to write”) as a base, the ancient Romans formed the noun scriba to denote a professional who copied texts. English adopted the term, changing the spelling only slightly. Scribere became the basis of other English words, for example, description (“a drawing of a picture using words”), manuscript (“an original text written by hand”), subscribe (“to sign one’s name to the end of a document as an indication of approval”), and postscript (“a note written after the signature in a letter or at the end of a book or speech.” Usually the note is preceded by the initials PS).

Statue

The Latin verb statuere means “to set up” or “to place.” In English, “statue” came to mean “a work of art that was set up in a particular position or location.”

Theater

This term traces its origins to the Greek noun thea, meaning “a look” or “a view.” From thea the Greeks formed theoria, “a viewing,” and theatron, “a place for viewing.” The Romans borrowed theatron and adapted the spelling to theatrum. When the latter entered the English language, it was spelled “theatre” (still used in English today) before assuming its present form.

Violin

The name of this widely known and played instrument has an extensive history. It derives directly from viola, a stringed instrument that is slightly larger than the violin and tuned a bit lower. Viola comes from viol, a stringed instrument played with a curved bow that was used chiefly in the 1500s and 1600s. Viol, in turn, traces its roots through French and Old English to the Latin verb vitulari, meaning “to rejoice.”

Yin/Yang

Sometimes symbols are used to replace words. When this happens on a regular basis, the words themselves are often forgotten. Such is the case with the symbol. While many use this symbol as decoration or for other purposes, the symbol is actually the visual representation of the two forces known as yin and yang. According to Chinese philosophy, these forces complement and depend upon each other. When the two are in harmony with each other, they are seen as the halves of a circle—one represented as light and the other as dark. The small circles within each half represent that part of the opposite force that is always present in the other. According to Chinese philosophy, yin and yang are both found in every aspect of life. Yin tends to be dark and heavy, feminine and passive. It is also the quiet decay of autumn and winter. Yang tends to be light and airy, masculine and forceful. It is the new growth of spring and summer.