Word.ws English Dictionary

psalmody

/ˈsɑː.mə.di/US/ˈsɑ.mə.di/

psalmody noun: the singing or the writing of psalms.

Noun

psalmody (countable and uncountable, plural psalmodies)

  1. (uncountable) The singing or the writing of psalms.
    • They deserved the enmity of the Pagans; and some of them might deserve the reproaches of avarice and intemperance; of avarice, which they gratified with holy plunder, and of intemperance, which they indulged at the expense of the people, who foolishly admired their tattered garments, loud psalmody...1781, Edward Gibbon, chapter XXVIII, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume III, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC
    • All these strange antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the devotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing some pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the most unnatural manner.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 3, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
  2. (countable) A collection of psalms.

Verb

psalmody (third-person singular simple present psalmodies, present participle psalmodying, simple past and past participle psalmodied)

  1. To celebrate in psalms.

Forms of psalmody

Noun
pluralpsalmodies
Verb
third-person singular presentpsalmodies
present participlepsalmodying
past participlepsalmodied
pastpsalmodied

Origin of psalmody

Borrowed from Latin psalmōdia, from Koine Greek ψαλμῳδίᾱ (psalmōidíā), from Ancient Greek ψαλμός (psalmós, “psalm”) + ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”).

Words formed from psalmody

Questions about psalmody

What does psalmody mean?
Psalmody means the singing or the writing of psalms.
What part of speech is psalmody?
Psalmody can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce psalmody?
Psalmody is pronounced /ˈsɑː.mə.di/ (UK).
What is the plural of psalmody?
The plural of psalmody is psalmodies.

Words near psalmody in the dictionary

  1. psalmodists
  2. psalmodize
  3. psalmodized
  4. psalmodizes
  5. psalmodizing
  6. psalmody
  7. psalmodying
  8. psalmograph
  9. psalmographer
  10. psalmographers
  11. psalmographs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: psalmody (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-psalmody.wav.

Cite this entry: “psalmody.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/psalmody. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.