Oh Word?

A lil etymology never hurt nobody. Today's word: GAMUT!

"This word combines the name of a Greek letter (gamma) with a Latin conjunction (ut) to form a word that is nowadays commonly used to mean "the full range or extent" of just about anything.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English language (4th ed., 2000), the word derives from the name of a medieval musical scale based on the Medieval Latin phrase gamma ut, where the low G (equivalent to the Greek gamma) was the lowest note of the scale and ut was the first note of the lowest hexachord. The ut (which is a Latin conjunction meaning "in order that" or "so that") refers to the first word in a Latin hymn to Saint John the Baptist, in which the initial syllables of successive lines were sang to the notes of an ascending scale CDEFGA, the full lyrics being:

Ut queant laxis
Resonare fibris
Mira gestorum
Famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti
Labii reatum, Sancte Iohannes.

According to the Chambers Etymological English Dictionary (1966 paperback ed., page 219), the scale was also known as the "great scale" of Guido of Arezzo. Chambers also notes that Ut was later replaced by Do. Making that substitution, and looking at the first syllables of the Latin words in each line above, one sees the origin of the familiar "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La" scale that is commonly sung today."

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