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 fibers 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., March, 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.
