English
la
La comes from Middle English la, from Italian la, Guido of Arezzo's solmization syllable, taken from Latin labiī ‘of the lips’ in the hymn Ut queant laxis.
- Italianc. 1300–presentla1
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500la1‘sixth note of Guido of Arezzo's scale’
- Englishearliest quotation 1749la1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English la
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones: “And now Mrs Waters (for we must confess she…”.
Lineage
- Italianc. 1300–presentlaWiktionary, English la
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500laWiktionary, English la‘sixth note of Guido of Arezzo's scale’
- Englishearliest quotation 1749laWiktionary, English la. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones: “And now Mrs Waters (for we must confess she…”
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with la, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *leb- ‘to hang loosely’
through Proto-Italic *labjom
- labial ← labiālis ← labium
through Latin labium ‘lip’
24 more relatives in the full family tree
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Another origin of la
- Frenchc. 1600–presentla
- Englishtodayla
Another origin of la
- Cantonesemodern啦laa¹
- Englishtodayla
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Today it means
noun A syllable used in solfège to represent the sixth note of a major scale.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “la”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Italian la / la