From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Lyre \Lyre\, noun [OE. lire, OF. lyre, L. lyra, Gr. ?. Cf. {Lyra}.]
1. (Mus.) A stringed instrument of music; a kind of harp much used by the ancients, as an accompaniment to poetry.
Note: The lyre was the peculiar instrument of Apollo, the tutelary god of music and poetry. It gave name to the species of verse called lyric, to which it originally furnished an accompaniment.
2. (Astron.) One of the constellations; Lyra. See {Lyra}.
{Lyre bat} (Zo["o]l.), a small bat ({Megaderma lyra}), inhabiting India and Ceylon. It is remarkable for the enormous size and curious shape of the nose membrane and ears.
{Lyre turtle} (Zo["o]l.), the leatherback.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
noun
1: a harp used by ancient Greeks for accompaniment
From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:
LYRE, noun An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the following fiery lines of our great poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox:
I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre, And pick with care the disobedient wire. That stupid shepherd lolling on his crook With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look. I bide my time, and it shall come at length, When, with a Titan's energy and strength, I'll grab a fistful of the strings, and O, The word shall suffer when I let them go! Farquharson Harris
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