Translation
to tune (an instrument); to configure, to set up
Word origin
From French accorder, to bring into agreement and so to tune a string, from Latin ad cor, to the heart. The same Latin picture sits inside English accord, concord and courage.
- Origin
- French
- Root
- accordare
- English cognates
- accord, concord, chord
Examples
.
He tuned his violin before the concert.
?
Can you tune my guitar for me?
.
I have to set up the new computer.
A string, a screw, and a small turn. is what you do to a violin
before you play it: you turn the peg until the string sits at the pitch it
should. It takes a direct object, so you the instrument rather than
tuning at it, and the result is . The thing you turn is an
o, a tuning key, with the -il- tool suffix
doing its usual clean job. Agordo is the noun: a tuning, a pitch, a setting.
The figurative sense is not a stretch here - it is the older one. Latin
ad cor means to the heart, and accordare meant to bring hearts into
agreement long before it meant to bring strings into agreement. Esperanto
kept both. So you can a piano, and you can a mood, and
neither is a metaphor borrowed from the other. This is the whole of what
La Tagiĝo is doing in its first four words:
Agordu la brustojn, ho nia fratar'!
Tune your chests, brothers. Grabowski is asking a crowd to get their voices and their hearts into one key at once, and the verb carries both readings without choosing. It is the opening line of the song, and it is why this word earns a page in a course that has 3,000 slots.
And then the modern job. is also the ordinary Esperanto verb for
configuring a machine: , on, and the
settings menu on any Esperanto interface is Agordoj. Nothing new was coined
for it - the tuning word simply took the work on, exactly as English tune
did in tune the engine. If you use Esperanto software, Agordoj is the word
you will meet first, and now you know the violin is underneath it.
Two neighbours. Akordo is a chord, three notes
sounding together, and it is the same root with the noun ending straight on
it; akordi is to be in agreement. Harmonio is
the wider musical and social sense. All three come from the same Latin heart,
which is a rare case of a family that stays honest in Esperanto.
Where this fits
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agordi: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "agordi" (to tune (an instrument); to configure, to set up): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 52.