song

Etymology

From Middle English song, sang, from Old English song, sang (“noise, song, singing, chanting; poetry; a poem to be sung or recited, psalm, lay”), from Proto-Germanic *sangwaz (“singing, song”), from Proto-Indo-European *sengʷʰ- (“to sing”). Cognate with Scots sang, song (“singing, song”), Saterland Frisian Song (“song”), West Frisian sang (“song”), Dutch zang (“song”), Low German sang (“song”), German Sang (“singing, song”), Swedish sång (“song”), Norwegian Bokmål sang (“song”), Norwegian Nynorsk song (“song”), Icelandic söngur (“song”), Ancient Greek ὀμφή (omphḗ, “voice, oracle”). More at sing.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sɒŋ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /sɔŋ/, /sɑŋ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒŋ

Noun

song (plural songs)

1. A musical composition with lyrics for voice or voices, performed by singing.

   Thomas listened to his favorite song on the radio yesterday.

   • 1568, William Cornishe [i.e., William Cornysh], “In the Fleete Made by Me William Cornishe otherwise Called Nyshwhete Chapelman with the Most Famose and Noble Kyng Henry the VII. His Reygne the XIX. Yere the Moneth of July. A Treatise betwene Trouth, and Information.”, in John Skelton, J[ohn] S[tow], editor, Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate, Imprinted at London: In Fletestreate, neare vnto Saint Dunstones Churche by Thomas Marshe, OCLC 54747393; republished as Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate to King Henry the VIIIth, London: Printed for C. Davis in Pater-noster Row, 1736, OCLC 731569711, page 290:

     The Harpe. […] A harper with his wreſt maye tune the harpe wrong / Mys tunying of an Inſtrument ſhal hurt a true ſonge

   • 1852, Mrs M.A. Thompson, “The Tutor's Daughter”, in Graham's American Monthly Magazine of Literature, Art, and Fashion, page 266:

     In the lightness of my heart I sang catches of songs as my horse gayly bore me along the well-remembered road.

   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 5, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights, […], the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seemed to have their part as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his thoughts.

2. (by extension) Any musical composition.
3. Poetical composition; poetry; verse.
   • John Milton (1608-1674)

     This subject for heroic song.

   • John Dryden (1631-1700)

     The bard that first adorned our native tongue / Tuned to his British lyre this ancient song.

4. The act or art of singing.
5. A melodious sound made by a bird, insect, whale or other animal.

   I love hearing the song of canary birds.

   • Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

     That most ethereal of all sounds, the song of crickets.

6. (ornithology) The distinctive sound that a male bird utters to attract a mate or to protect his territory; contrasts with call
7. Something that cost only a little; chiefly in for a song.

   He bought that car for a song.

   • Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864)

     The soldier's pay is a song.

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., 55 Fifth Avenue, [1933], OCLC 2666860, page 0016:

     Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; […].

8. An object of derision; a laughing stock.
   • Bible, Job xxx. 9

     And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.

See also

• canticle
• go for a song

Anagrams

• NGOs, NGSO, Ngos, gons, nogs, snog

Adjective

song

1. angry

Etymology

Borrowed from English song.

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

song m (plural songs)

1. song

Etymology

From Old Norse sæing (“bed”), later sæng.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɔŋk/

Noun

song f (genitive singular songar or seingjar, plural seingir or sengur)

1. bed

See also

• kamar
• sovikamar
• svøvnposi
• svøvnur
• koddi

Romanization

song

1. Nonstandard spelling of sōng.
2. Nonstandard spelling of sǒng.
3. Nonstandard spelling of sòng.

Etymology

From Old Norse sǫngr. Akin to English song.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɔŋː/

Noun

song m (definite singular songen, indefinite plural songar, definite plural songane)

1. song

   Kven er det som syng denne songen?

   Who sings this song?

Verb

song

1. past tense of syngja, syngje, synga and synge

References

• “song” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Etymology

From Proto-Tai *soːŋᴬ, from Middle Chinese 雙 (MC ʃˠʌŋ, “two”). Compare Lao ສອງ (sǭng), Lü ᦉᦸᧂ (ṡoang), Shan သွင် (sʰɔŋ1), Thai สอง (sɔ̌ɔng).

Numeral

song

1. two

Etymology

From English song.

Noun

song

1. song

Pronunciation

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [sawŋ͡m˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [ʂawŋ͡m˧˧]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [ʂawŋ͡m˧˧]
• Homophone: xong

Etymology 1

Etymology 2

Sino-Vietnamese word from 窗 (“window”).

Etymology 3

Sino-Vietnamese word from 雙 (“double; pair”).

Etymology

From Proto-Tai *soːŋᴬ, from Middle Chinese 雙 (MC ʃˠʌŋ, “two”). Compare Lao ສອງ (sǭng), Lü ᦉᦸᧂ (ṡoang), Shan သွင် (sʰɔŋ1), Thai สอง (sɔ̌ɔng).

Pronunciation

• (Standard Zhuang) IPA^(key): /θoːŋ˨˦/
• Tone numbers: song¹
• Hyphenation: song

Numeral

song (old orthography soŋ, Sawndip forms 雙, 双, 松)

1. two
   • 2008, Rint Sybesma, Zhuang: A Tai language with some Sinitic characteristics, in From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics (edited by Pieter Muysken), page 246:

     De   fwngz   ndeu   yaeuj   ndaej   song   doengj   raemx   bae!

     3s    hand    one     raise    ACQ    two    bucket    water    PRT

     S/he can lift two buckets of water with one hand!