▪ I. lyre1
(laɪə(r))
Also 3 lire.
[a. F. lyre, OF. lire (12th c. in Littré), ad. L. lyra, a. Gr. λύρα.]
1. A stringed instrument of the harp kind, used by the Greeks for accompanying song and recitation.
The word is used to translate the Gr. κιθάρα (in Homer κίθαρις) and ϕόρµιγξ, as well as λύρα; also sometimes used interchangeably with harp. æolian lyre, the æolian harp: see æolian 2.
| c 1205 Lay. 7003 Of harpe & of salterium, of fiðele & of coriun, of timpe & of lire. 1598 Florio, Lira, an instrument of musicke called a lyre [1611 Lyra] or a harp. 1635–56 Cowley Davideis i. 26 The tuneful Strings of David's Lyre. 1647 Crashaw Music's Duel Poems 89 A holy quire Founded to th' name of great Apollo's lyre. 1697 Dryden Alexander's Feast 123 Now strike the golden lyre again. 1725 Pope Odyss. i. 197 To Phemius was consign'd the chorded lyre. a 1774 Goldsm. Surv. Exp. Philos. (1776) II. 190 The Eolian lyre is easily made, being nothing more than a long narrow box of thin deal [etc.]. 1876 Humphreys Coin-Coll. Man. v. 45 He [Arion] generally holds in one hand the lyre and in the other the plectrum. |
b. fig. chiefly as the symbol of lyric poetry.
| 1683 Dryden To Mem. Mr. Oldham 5 One common note on either lyre did strike, And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike. 1754 Gray Progr. Poesy i. i, Awake, æolian lyre, awake. 1782 Cowper Charity 106 The painter's pencil, and the poet's lyre. 1819 Shelley Ode West Wind, Make me thy lyre even as the forest is. 1838 Thirlwall Greece II. xii. 123 If we had been permitted to compare the happiest productions of the æolian, the Dorian, and the Ionian lyre. 1850 Tennyson In Mem. xcvi, One indeed I knew In many a subtle question versed, Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first, But ever strove to make it true. |
2. Astr. = lyra 2.
| 1868 Lockyer Guillemin's Heavens (ed. 3) 348 Vega, the brightest star in the constellation of the Lyre. |
3. Anat. = lyra 4.
| 1900 Deaver Surg. Anat. II. 522 The fibres of the under surface of the fornix behind are so arranged as to give rise to the designation the lyre. |
4. ‘A grade of isinglass; a trade name’ (Cent. Dict. 1890).
| [1856 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 8) XII. 628/2 art. Isinglass, For long and short staple, it is twisted between three pegs, into the shape of a horse-shoe, harp, or lyre.] |
5. attrib. and Comb., as lyre-affecting adj.; lyre-bat, a species of bat, Megaderma lyra; lyre-bird, an Australian bird, Menura superba or M. novæhollandiæ, resembling a pheasant with a beautiful lyre-shaped tail; lyre-fish, the Harp-fish or Piper, Trigla lyra; lyre-flower, Dielytra spectabilis (Cassell); lyre-man U.S., a cicada or harvest-fly; lyre-pheasant = lyre-bird; lyre-shaped a. = lyrate; lyre-tail = lyre-bird; lyre-turtle U.S., the leather back or trunk-turtle, Dermochelys coriaceus; † lyre-viol = lyra-viol (see lyra 5).
| 1611 Cotgr., Aime-lyre,..Harpe-louing, *Lyre-affecting. |
| 1834 G. Bennett Wand. New S. Wales I. 277 The ‘Native or Wood-pheasant’, or ‘*Lyre bird’ of the colonists. 1872 A. Domett Ranolf i. iii. 7 Curved like the lyre-bird's tail half spread. |
| 1884 Longm. Mag. Mar. 530 The gurnards, one of which is known as the *lyre-fish. |
| 1778 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 2) II. 1297/1 (Botany). Lyratum, *lyre-shaped; i.e. divided transversely into oblong horizontal segments, of which the lower ones are lesser and more distant from each other than the upper ones. 1901 Q. Rev. July 232 Spiral, lyre-shaped horns. |
| 1660 Pepys Diary 17 Nov., Then to my *lyre-viall, and to bed. |
▪ II. † lyre2 Obs.
The name (med.L. Lyra) of a town in Brabant, now Lire or Liere, occurring in the designations of certain kinds of cloth, as black of lyre (black a-lyre, black of lure), green of lyre (grene alyr, grene lyre).
| [1390–1 Earl Derby's Exped. (Camden) 89 Pro xxiijbus uirgis panni nigri de Lyra. Ibid. 90 Pro j vlna et di. de blodeo de Lyra.] 1421 in E.E. Wills (1882) 97 note, Blac of lyre. 1434 Ibid. 97 An hode of black of lure, an a hod of blewe. 1439 Ibid. 118 My gowne of grene Alyre cloth of golde. 1490 Ibid. 97 note, Togam viridis coloris anglice grene lyre medley. |
| attrib. 1479 in Eng. Gilds (1870) 415 [The mayor of Bristol] in..his skarlat cloke, furred, with his blak a lyre hode, or tepet of blak felwet. |
▪ III. lyre3 Orkney and Shetland.
Also lyer, lyrie, layer, lyar.
[a. Da. lire.]
The bird Manx Shearwater, Puffinus anglorum.
| 1654 Blaeu's Atlas Scot., Orkney, The Stour, where buildet that excellent foul, called the Lyer. 1701 J. Brand Descr. Orkney (1703) 22 The Lyre is a rare and delicious Sea fowl. 1777 Pennant Zool. (1812) II. 207. 1889 Saunders Man. Brit. Birds 719 Lyrie. |
▪ IV. lyre
variant of lear2 Obs., lire n.1 Obs.