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''lira'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260207202820-00-⌔

lira - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

lira (plural lire or lira or liras)

  • The basic unit of currency in Turkey.
  • The currency of Lebanon (also pound), Syria (also pound), Jordan (also dinar)
  • The former currency of Italy, Malta, San Marino, Cyprus and the Vatican City, superseded by the euro

Noun

lira (plural lirot or liroth or liras)

  • The former currency of Israel, superseded by the sheqel.

Noun

lira

  • A Ukrainian folk musical instrument similar to the hurdy-gurdy.

Noun

lira (plural lirae)

  • Any of a set of fine ridges on the shells of some molluscs

Noun

lira

  • Alternative form of lyra.
    • ✤ The first evidence of the Byzantine lira is in a Persian literary source of the ninth century.1
    • ✤ Some instruments comprise types which are found, more or less unchanged, also with various nations and periods (recorder, shawm), whereas others belong to smaller regions (byzantine lira, rectangular harp) or only to the territory of Serbia and Macedonia (drums, larger shawms, especially in the Turkish period).2
    • ✤ Being an approximate synonym of cithara, the word lyra is most often applied to the harp, but one also finds it interpreted as the Germanic lyre, Byzantine lira (equated in turn with the Arabic rebab), hurdy-gurdy, citole or gittern, lute, etc.3

Etymology 1

From Italian lira, from Latin lībra (partly via Turkish lira, Arabic لِيرَة (līra), Maltese lira, Greek λίρα (líra), and Hebrew לִירָה (“lirá”), all of which are originally from the Italian). Doublet of arratel, libbra, Libra, libra, litra, litre, livre, and rottol.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈlɪəɹə/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɪəɹə

Etymology 2

From Ukrainian ліра (lira), ultimately related to the Byzantine lyra (Ancient Greek λύρα (lúra)). Doublet of Lyra, lyra, and lyre.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈlɪəɹə/
  • Rhymes: -ɪəɹə

Etymology 3

From Latin līra (“furrow”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈlaɪɹə/
  • Rhymes: -aɪɹə
  • Homophones: lyra, Lyra

Etymology 4

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1940, Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., page 275: ↩

  2. 1976, Musicological Annual, page 118: ↩

  3. 1977, Laurence Wright, “The Medieval Gittern and Citole: A Case of Mistaken Identity”, in The Galpin Society Journal: ↩

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Secondary

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