Antiphone

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A liturgical chant or musical composition sung alternately by two groups or choirs in a call-and-response pattern
2. A responsorial hymn or sacred musical piece in which different choir groups sing successive phrases or verses
3. A liturgical musical work performed by alternating singers or choir sections in antiphonal style

Etymology: The word is a variant spelling of "antiphon," and its story begins with sound and response. In ancient Greek, "antíphōna" was the plural of an adjective meaning "concordant" or "sounding in answer," built from "antí," meaning "in return," and "phōnḗ," meaning "sound" or "voice." The plural form referred to responses and musical accords, sounds that answered one another. That sense of call and reply stuck to the music of the church. Medieval Latin took the Greek plural as "antiphōna," and the term came to describe a short liturgical chant sung in alternation, with one group of singers answering another. The idea of voices trading lines, rather than a single voice speaking, is built into the word from the start. The word reached English through French "antiphone," so the spelling you see here is a form closer to that French source. "Antiphone" and "antiphon" are doublets of "anthem," which came into English through a different route from the same Greek origin, so the two words are cousins that took separate paths into the language.