rhythmus

According to Google, the Latin word for rhythm is “modum” and “rhythmus” is an Greek word that means “rhyme” or “countable,” but “rithimus” is not a combination of letters that has ever meant anything.

You don’t need a story, or even people, as the pioneering Hans Richter demonstrated with the shifting rectangular abstractions of his 1921 animation “Rhythmus 21.”

I rendered it from the French version, preserving the rhythmus and the measure of the original.” 

As Kussmaul has pointed out the rhythmus acts as an efficient will-regulator, so that nerve impulses go down regularly and are not interrupted by consciousness and by the sudden starts and stoppages due to fear and tremor and mental uneasiness.

The musical impression made by a period consisting of long and short syllables arranged in a certain order is what the Greeks called rhythmus, the Latins numerus, and we melody or measure.