The word was first recorded in English by 1400, from Latin, by way of French. Geoffrey Chaucer, translating the Roman philosopher Boethius, used it to describe a story that ended in misfortune.
French had already used the word by 1300, for a medieval narrative. Behind the French form lay a Latin word, and behind that, a Greek word built from two parts joined together.
One of those two parts from the Greek word meant 'song', tracing to a Proto-Indo-European root, *wed-, meaning 'to speak'. The other was tragos, meaning 'goat', a word believed to predate the Greek language itself, with no confirmed root beyond it.
ODE and RHAPSODY share the same root, meaning 'song'. ODE entered English in the 1580s, from Greek, describing a poem meant to be sung aloud. RHAPSODY entered English in the 1540s, from Greek, meaning 'one who stitches songs together', originally describing a reciter of epic poetry.
By the early sixteenth century the word had already broadened beyond the stage, naming a particular type of unwanted event. It was also believed, around the middle of the century, to name a hymn sung in ancient Greece at the sacrifice of a goat. In 1597, William Shakespeare used the word directly on the title page of one of his most famous plays.
Seven letters.
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