psalm
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Any sacred song used to praise the deity.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sahlmIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɑlm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
religionmusic
Any sacred song used to praise the deity
religionmusic
A sacred song; a poetical composition for use in the praise or worship of God.
One of the 150 lyrical poems and prayers that comprise the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament; said to have been written by David
One of the hymns by David and others, collected into one book of the Old Testament, or a modern metrical version of such a hymn for public worship.
verb
Sing or celebrate in psalms
“He psalms the works of God.”
To extol in psalms; to make music; to sing
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Any sacred song used to praise the deity
Used this way, psalm is a reasonably familiar word with a mildly favourable edge. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Positive and appreciative
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Music/performance
- Arts writing
- Religion/spirituality
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
An Old Testament book consisting of a collection of 150 Psalms.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An Old Testament book consisting of a collection of 150 Psalms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.