CHOIR
What does "CHOIR" mean?
An organized group of singers, especially one that performs in a church.
Meanings
- A group of singers who perform together. The school choir sang carols in the town square.
- The part of a church, typically east of the nave, where the choir and clergy sit. Light streamed through the windows above the choir. technical
- A grouping of instruments of the same family in an orchestra (e.g. the brass choir). The brass choir opened the symphony's final movement. technical
Did you know?
- 'Choir' used to be spelled 'quire', matching how it sounds; 17th-century scholars deliberately respelled it to resemble the Latin 'chorus', which is why the word now looks nothing like its pronunciation.
Word origin
From Old French 'cuer', from Latin 'chorus', from Greek 'khoros' (a band of dancers and singers); the spelling was deliberately re-Latinized to 'choir' in the 17th century, which is why it looks nothing like it sounds.
Remember it
CHOIR is the rare word where 'CH' sounds like 'K' and 'OIR' sounds like 'wire' - K-wire, a choir of voices on a wire of melody.
A little poem
Forty throats, one sound, no single name-
the soprano vanishes into the whole.
This is how a crowd learns to be kind.
tercet
Wordplay
- The choir's spelling lesson was a disaster. Nobody could agree whether it sounded like it looked.
What it teaches
A choir is the rare crowd where blending in is the whole art; harmony asks you to be heard, not noticed.
Quick facts
What does CHOIR mean?
An organized group of singers, especially one that performs in a church.
Is CHOIR a valid word?
Yes — CHOIR is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is CHOIR?
CHOIR has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does CHOIR come from?
From Old French 'cuer', from Latin 'chorus', from Greek 'khoros' (a band of dancers and singers); the spelling was deliberately re-Latinized to 'choir' in the 17th century, which is why it looks nothing like it sounds.
What can CHOIR teach us?
A choir is the rare crowd where blending in is the whole art; harmony asks you to be heard, not noticed.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.