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ng; a poetical composition for use in the praise or worship of God. Humus devout and holy psalms Singing everlastingly. Milton.

d songs; -- a title particularly applied to David and the other authors of the Scriptural psalms.

The use of psalms in devotion; psalmody.

Relating to psalmody.

One who sings sacred songs; a psalmist.

To practice psalmody. " The psalmodizing art." J. G. Cooper.

The act, practice, or art of singing psalms or sacred songs; also, psalms collectively, or a collection of psalms.

A writer of psalms; a psalmographer.

A writer of psalms, or sacred songs and hymns.

The act or practice of writing psalms, or sacred songs.

o, or formed by, the letters of the alphabet; alphabetic; hence, rudimentary. Abecedarian psalms, hymns, etc., compositions in which (like the 119th psalm in Hebrew) distinct portions or verses commence with successive letters of the alphabet. Hook.

in which the lines or stanzas begin with the letters of the alphabet in regular order (as Psalm cxix.). See Abecedarian. Double acrostic, a species of enigma, in which words are to be guessed whose initial and final letters form other words.

The end of a verse or psalm, or something added thereto, to be sung by the people, by way of a response.

offense; -- followed by of, against, or a subordinate clause. Admonishing one another in psalms and hymns. Col. iii. 16. I warned thee, I admonished thee, foretold The danger, and the lurking enemy. Milton.

In harmonized chorals, psalmody, part songs, etc., the part which bears the tune or melody -- in modern harmony usually the upper part -- is sometimes called the air.

; the whole; totality; everything or every person; as, our all is at stake. Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all. Shak. All that thou seest is mine. Gen. xxxi. 43.

Formerly, a hymn sung in alternate parts, in present usage, a selection from the Psalms, or other parts of the Scriptures or the liturgy, set to sacred music.

A verse said before and after the psalms. Shipley.

An anthem or psalm sung alternately by a choir or congregation divided into two parts. Also figuratively. O! never more for me shall winds intone, With all your tops, a vast antiphony. R. Browning.

tems of an account; to call the roll of a military company. No parish clerk who calls the psalm so clear. Gay.