- gamut
- 1530, originally, "lowest note in the medieval musical scale," in the system of notation devised by Guido d'Arezzo, contraction of M.L. gamma ut, from gamma, the Gk. letter, indicating a note below A + ut (later do), the low note on the six-note musical scale that took names from corresponding syllables in a L. hymn for St. John the Baptist's Day:
"Ut queant laxis resonare fibris
etc. Gamut came to be used for "the whole musical scale" by 1529; the figurative sense of "entire scale or range" of anything is first recorded 1626.
Mira gestorum famuli tuorum
Solve polluti labii reatum,"