lira

noun

1. The basic unit of currency in Turkey.
2. The currency of Lebanon (also pound), Syria (also pound), Jordan (also dinar)
3. The former currency of Italy, Malta, San Marino, Cyprus and the Vatican City, superseded by the euro
4. The former currency of Israel, superseded by the sheqel.
5. A Ukrainian folk musical instrument similar to the hurdy-gurdy.
6. Any of a set of fine ridges on the shells of some molluscs
7. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of lyra.

   “The first evidence of the Byzantine lira is in a Persian literary source of the ninth century.”

   “Some instruments comprise types which are found, more or less unchanged, also with various nations and periods (recorder, shawm), whereas others belong to smaller regions (byzantine lira, rectangular harp) or only to the territory of Serbia and Macedonia (drums, larger shawms, especially in the Turkish period).”

   “Being an approximate synonym of cithara, the word lyra is most often applied to the harp, but one also finds it interpreted as the Germanic lyre, Byzantine lira (equated in turn with the Arabic rebab), hurdy-gurdy, citole or gittern, lute, etc.”

name

1. A surname from Spanish.

   “Gonzalo Lira, a 55-year-old Chilean American who was imprisoned in Ukraine after allegedly spreading Russian propaganda then violating his bail conditions, has died in a Ukrainian jail. […] Lira baselessly branded Ukraine's leader a "cokehead," and described the Russian operation as "one of the most brilliant invasions in military history."”