2839: Cello Sep 28, 2024

The word 'cello' originates as a clipping of the Italian term 'violoncello', which in turn comes from 'violone'. 'Violoncello' translates to "little violone" in Italian, where 'violone' refers to an early form of the double bass. The suffix '-cello' (-elle in Italian) denotes a diminutive form, indicating that the instrument is smaller in size compared to the violone. The term 'violone' itself is derived from 'viola' with the augmentative suffix '-one' (-oon in Italian), emphasizing its larger size compared to the standard viola.

2354: gamut May 29, 2021

'Gamut' referring to the whole range of something originates with music. In fact, this really began as a phrase, from the medieval Latin 'gamma ut' with that being the lowest note on a G scale. This is from the Greek Γ (gamma) originally denoting the last a medieval scale in a hexachord—gamma appears 6th in Greek's alphabet—which was associated with the sound 'ut' in solfège i.e. ut, re, mi, fa.... Eventually this was applied to other scales with more notes and then ranges of anything.

2353: Origin of Solfège Sounds May 28, 2021

Solfège, i.e. pairing notes of a scale to syllables did not draw these syllables entirely out of nowhere. It comes from the medieval hexachord scale associated with words from a Latin hymn for St. John the Baptist's Day:

(Ut) queant (la)xisresonare fibris

(Mi)ra gestorum (fa)muli tuorum,

(Sol)ve pollutis (la)biis reatum,

(S)ancte (I)ohannes.

Notably, the 'do' and 'ti' are missing, and 'ut' is included. Indeed, 'ut' was actually preferred in solfège later into the 17th century but was changed to make for the sake of the preferred sound. 'Ti' was added originally as 'si' from the name of the saint himself at the end, but in the anglophone word became 'ti' for ease of discernment.