decachord

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek δεκάχορδος (dekákhordos, “ten-stringed”), from δέκα (déka, “ten”) +‎ χορδή (khordḗ, “guts, string of a musical instrument”).

Noun

decachord (plural decachords)

1. An Ancient Greek musical instrument with ten strings, resembling the harp.
   • 2011, Curial and Guelfa, page 236:

     Apollo himself is depicted with a decachord, that is, an instrument with ten tuned strings, or ten harmonising voices, otherwise a cithara.

2. A musical instrument mentioned in the Psalms, having ten strings and thought to resemble a lute or psaltery.
   • 1863, Psalterium Messianicum Davidis Regis et Prophetae, page 228:

     It is delightful to praise Jehobah, And to chant the measured lay to Thy name, O Most High; To proclaim Thy mercy in the morning, And Thy faithfulness every night, Upon the decachord, even upon the psaltery, Upon the higgæon, together with the harp.

   • 1871, John Mason Neale, Richard Frederick Littledale, A Commentary on the Psalms: Psalm LXXXI. to Psalm CXVIII., page 185:

     The first is the view taken by the Syriac and Arabic versions, which make the lute to be the decachord, and the harp the mere accompaniment to a song.

   • 1884, John Mason Neale, Selections from the Writings of John Mason Neale, page 31:

     Thou City of the Lord! Whose everlasting music Is the glorious decachord!

3. Anything having ten parts, especially something of mystical Christian significance.
   • 1937, John Wesley Stockwell, Riding the Question Mark Through Life Situations and Progress, page 269:

     The last presents the decachord theme in the form of a necklace of ten pieces of silver, precious and significant only when the pieces were not separated.

   • 2020, Matthew Coneys Wainwright, Emily Michelson, A Companion to Religious Minorities in Early Modern Rome, page 329:

     This decachord of 10 books about Christ's life from the Annunciation through his Ascension, culminating in the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and the birth of the Church, was dedicated to Pope Julius II.

   • 2020, Rev. J.M. Neale, A Commentary on the Psalms, page 497:

     Zigabenus sees in this expression the four great hymns of the New Testament: he also sees in the decachord the ten songs of the Old Testament, those of Miriam, Moses, Deborah, Hannah, David, Solomon, Judith, Hezekiah, Habakkuk, the Three Children, — an adaptation rather than an explanation.

4. (music) A set of ten pitches used to create a musical mode.
   • 1999, George Eric Lasker, James Rhodes, Systems Research in the Arts, page 2:

     Using the logic employed by many subset-based similarity measures, the chromatic trichord apparently has twice the affinity to this decachord as it does to the chromatic pentachord, despite the fact that the trichord could be seen as the progenitor of the pentachord but not of the decachord.

   • 2005, Richard J. Dumbrill, The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East, page 100:

     The reduced span of the system either indicates that the system was devised for the octochord or the decachord, or for the octochord with different tunings, in respect of UET VII 74.

   • 2016, Andrew Kirkman, Alexander Ivashkin, Contemplating Shostakovich, page 22:

     Two pentachords can be combined to create the decachord discussed by Carpenter.

   • 2016, Nigel Hiscock, The Symbol at Your Door:

     With a slightly different line of reasoning, yet reaching a similar conclusion, Guy d'Eu, the monk who was put in charge of the Cistercians' chant reform in the twelfth century, explained the expansion of the octave, or diapason, into the decachord.

Anagrams

• dodecarch