Other forms: lyrics
A lyric is the words of a song, or a short poem of feeling. Song lyrics, a lyric poem, learn the lyric.
The words of a song are usually the plural, lyrics. In poetry a lyric is a short personal poem as against a narrative one, and both senses come from the lyre: a lyric was originally anything sung to that instrument.
1nounlyricThe words of a song, or a short poem of feeling.
“He forgot the lyrics halfway through the second verse and had to hum.”
lyric is words.
Greek lyrikos means of the lyre, from lyra, the instrument. A lyric was first a poem sung to it.
Ancient Greek
λυρικός
Latin
lyricus
French
lyrique
English, today
lyric
Built from
From French lyrique, or its source, Latin lyricus, from Ancient Greek λυρικός, from λύρα (“lyre”). Its English equivalent would be lyre + ic. The original Greek sense of "lyric poetry"—"poetry accompanied by the lyre" i.e. "words set to music"—eventually led to its use as "lyrics", first attested in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Stainer and Barrett used the word as a singular substantive: "Lyric, poetry or blank verse intended to be set to music and sung". By the 1930s, the present use of the plurale tantum "lyrics" had begun; it has been standard since the 1950s for many writers. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song by authorities such as Alec Wilder, Robert Gottlieb, and Stephen Sondheim. However, the singular form is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA