lira
Plurallire, lira, liras, lirot, liroth, lirae
- 1Turkey's official currency, or a single unit of that currency.
She changed her remaining euros into lira at the airport bureau.
Restaurant prices across the city are quoted in lira.
Note
A name that traveled east from Italy: Italian lira, from Latin lībra, came into English partly by way of Turkish lira. The same Latin word lies behind livre, libra and Libra, so the currency shares its ancestry with old measures of weight. English allows three plurals: lire keeps the Italian pattern, liras is the regular English form, and lira itself can also stand unchanged for more than one.
- 2The currency that the euro replaced in Italy, Malta, San Marino, Cyprus, and Vatican City.
Shoppers had to relearn prices when the lira gave way to the euro.
He found a faded receipt listing the amount in lira from a decade earlier.
- 3The unit of currency used in Lebanon and Syria (also called the pound) and in Jordan (also called the dinar).
The shopkeeper counted out my change in worn lira notes.
Travelers to Beirut often carry both dollars and lira.
Similarpound
- 4The former unit of currency of Israel, replaced by the sheqel.
Older ledgers from that era record every sale in lira.
She remembers buying bread for a handful of lira as a child.
- 5A hurdy-gurdy-like stringed instrument played in Ukrainian folk music.
At the festival, an old performer coaxed a droning melody from his lira.
The museum's collection includes a hand-carved lira from the nineteenth century.
Note
A different word happens to share the spelling here. This lira comes from Ukrainian ліра and is related to Greek lúra, so its English relatives are lyre and lyra, not the coins. It shares a Byzantine ancestor with the bowed Byzantine instrument. In a discussion of music, the word means strings, not money.
- 6One of the thin raised lines found on the shells of certain mollusks.
Under magnification, each lira on the snail's shell was sharply defined.
The species is identified partly by the number of lirae spiraling around its shell.
Similarridge
Note
This word has nothing to do with money. It comes from Latin līra, "furrow," and pictures the shell's fine ridges as raised lines like those a plow leaves. When counting them, specialists use the Latin plural, lirae, so one species can be told from another by how many lirae spiral around its shell.
- 7Alternative form of lyra.
A bowed lira led the ensemble through the traditional dance tune.
Her recording features the lira alongside a small hand drum.
Note
The spelling lira turns up for the bowed instrument of the Byzantine Empire, as in Curt Sachs's The History of Musical Instruments (1940). The main form, lyra, covers far more: an acrobat's hoop, a constellation, even a part of the brain. The lira spelling belongs to the musical sense, usually in the phrase Byzantine lira.
Practice
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Origins
From Italian lira, from Latin lībra, partly via Turkish lira, Arabic līra, Maltese lira, Greek líra, and Hebrew lirá, all of which are originally from the Italian. It is a doublet of arratel, libbra, Libra, libra, litra, litre, livre, and rottol.
From Ukrainian ліра (lira), ultimately related to the Byzantine lyra (Ancient Greek λύρα, lúra). It is a doublet of Lyra, lyra, and lyre.
From Latin līra, meaning "furrow".