Etymology Dictionary

GAMUT,  the musical scale.  (Hybrid; F.,—Gk., and L.)   In Shak. Tam. Shrew, iii. 1. 67, 71.   A compound word, made up from O.F. game or gamme, and ut.   1. Gower has gamme in the sense of 'a musical scale;' C.A. iii. 90.—O.F. game, gamme, 'gamut, in musick;' Cot.—Gk. γάμμα, the name of the third letter of the alphabet.—Heb. gimel, the third letter of the alphabet, so named from its supposed resemblance to a camel, called in Hebrew gámál (Farrar, Chapters on Language, 136).   Brachet says:  'Guy of Arezzo [born about A.D. 990] used to end the series of seven notes of the musical scale by this mark, γ [gamma].   He named the notes a, b, c, d, e, f, g, and the last of the series has given its name to the whole scale.'   2. The word ut is Latin, and is the old name for the first note in singing, now called do.   The same Guy of Arezzo is said to have named the notes after certain syllables of a monkish hymn to S. John, in a stanza written in sapphic metre.   The lines are:  'Ut queant laxis resonare fibris Mira gestorum famuli tuorum Solue pollutis labiis reatum Sancte Iohannes;' the last term si being made from the initials of the final words. [†]

ADDENDA

Strictly, the word is (Hybrid; F.,—L.,—Gk.,—Phœnician; and L.)   The Greek γάμμα stands for γάμλα (the pronunciation in the Mishna, see Fürst); and is from the Phœnician word corresponding to Heb. gámál, a camel.   Cf. Heb. gímel, the name of the third Heb. letter.   See Smith's Dict. of the Bible, iii. 1797.—A. L. M.   Cf. 'gammouthe, gamme;' Palsgrave.   'Game, f. gamut;' Cotgrave.