Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Organum

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

OR'GANUM (ὄργανον). A general name given to any instrument, machine, or contrivance by which human labour is assistened in agriculture, architecture, warfare, &c.; differing, however, from machina in this particular, that it required a certain amount of skill from the person using it, whereas that only wanted brute force or numbers to work it. (Vitruv. x. 1. 3. Columell. iii. 13. 12. Plin. H. N. xix. 20.) Hence the word is especially given to musical instruments (Quint. ix. 4. 10. xi. 3. 20.), and amongst these, more particularly to the one from which our organ is descended (Suet. Nero, 41. Lamprid. Alex. Sev. 27. Id. Heliog. 32.); but which also had a special name of its own, in allusion to the water originally employed, instead of weights, for working it. See HYDRAULUS.