song

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.

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

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒŋ

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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     This subject for heroic song.

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Dryden

     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.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Nathaniel Hawthorne

     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.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Benjamin Silliman

     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.

• canticle
• go for a song

• NGOs, NGSO, Ngos, gons, nogs, snog

song

1. rhinoceros beetle

song

1. angry

Borrowed from English song. Doublet of zang.

• Audio

  (file)

song m (plural songs)

1. song

• lied, liedje

• songfestival
• songtekst

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

• IPA^(key): /sɔŋk/

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

1. bed

• kamar
• sovikamar
• svøvnposi
• svøvnur
• koddi

song

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

• English transcriptions of Mandarin speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

• sange, sang, songe, zang, zong, zonge, soong, songge

From Old English sang, song, from Proto-Germanic *sangwaz.

• IPA^(key): /sɔnɡ/, /sɔːnɡ/, /sanɡ/, /saːnɡ/

song (plural songes)

1. A song (lyrical music):
   1. Religious or spiritual chanting or hymns.
   2. A exposition or story, especially a sung one.
   3. A song supposed to have occult or magical power.
2. The practice or an instance of singing songs.
3. The sound produced by a bird (rarely other creatures)
4. A tune; non-lyrical music.
5. A quip, declaration, or remark.
6. A poem; a written work in verse.

• songly

• English: song
• Scots: song, sang

• “sō̆ng (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-10-24.

From Old Norse sǫngr. Akin to English song.

• IPA^(key): /sɔŋː/

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

1. song

   Kven er det som syng denne songen?

   Who sings this song?

song

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

• “song” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From English song.

song

1. song

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

(classifier cây) song (𧄐, 𫁷, 󰓖)

1. big rattan

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

song

1. (archaic, literary) window
2. Short for chấn song (“upright post in a paling or railing”).

   sau song sắt

   behind (iron) bars

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

song

1. bi-; double; parallel

   song đấm

   twin punches; punches performed with both hands

song

1. (formal) however
2. (formal) but

From Proto-Tai *soːŋᴬ, from Middle Chinese 雙 (MC ʃˠʌŋ, “two”). Cognate with Thai สอง (sɔ̌ɔng), Northern Thai ᩈᩬᨦ, Lao ສອງ (sǭng), Lü ᦉᦸᧂ (ṡoang), Tai Dam ꪎꪮꪉ, Shan သွင် (sǒang), Tai Nüa ᥔᥩᥒᥴ (soang¹), Ahom 𑜏𑜨𑜂𑜫 (song).

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

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!

Used with ndeu rather than it.

• ngeih