syllabub

Pronounced: SIH-luh-buhb, noun

Notes: Our word differs from syllabus by one letter, but the meaning are not related

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Yesterday’s word

The word contrafactum is “a composition that makes use of an existing piece of music with different lyrics”

First usage

Our word came into English in the 1940s

Background / Comments

I have said “same tune, different words”, not knowing that there was a word for it. I first thought of the song “The Master Hath Come” which is a contrafactum of “The Ash Grove”, and then I thought of “My Country ‘Tis Of Thee”, which shares a tune with “God Save The King” (the UK national anthem). Our word comes from the Latin word contrafacere (to counterfeit), which is made up of contra- (against) and facere (to make; to do). The plural of our word is contrafacta.