Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Music) a stringed instrument of the group including harps, lutes, lyres, and zithers.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun music Any stringed musical instrument.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a stringed instrument of the group including harps, lutes, lyres, and zithers

Etymologies

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Examples

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  • "Lutes and guitars are cousins, members of the family called chordophones, instruments with vibrating strings. The earliest ancestor of this family, and therefore of all stringed instruments, was a musical hunting bow, first depicted in a Paleolithic cave painting at Trois Frères, in southern France, dating from 15,000 B.C. In this image a priest or sorcerer dressed in a bison skin holds a bow to the mouth of his mask, using his own skull as a resonator. The musical hunting bow survives as the okongo or kora, used during rituals in sub-Saharan Africa. Similar musical bows are found in South America and among Native Americans."

    —Glenn Kurtz, Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 107

    November 3, 2008

  • By trumpets woodwinds and trombone

    A great deal of music is blown,

    And riding those gusts

    In dartings and thrusts

    Are flights of the sweet chordophone.

    July 30, 2018