Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, as a "librettist". The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation meter, and symmetry of expression. Rappers can also create lyrics (often with a variation of rhyming words) that are meant to be spoken rhythmically rather than sung.

The word lyric derives via Latin lyrics from the Greek λυρικός (lurikós), the adjectival form of a lyre. It first appeared in English in the mid-16th century about the Earl of Surrey's translations of Petrarch and his sonnets. Greek lyric poetry had been defined by how it was sung accompanied by the lyre or cithara, as opposed to the chanted formal epics or the more passionate elegies accompanied by the flute.