CITTERN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does cittern mean? 

• CITTERN (noun)
  The noun CITTERN has 1 sense:

1. a 16th century musical instrument resembling a guitar with a pear-shaped soundbox and wire strings

  Familiarity information: CITTERN used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CITTERN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A 16th century musical instrument resembling a guitar with a pear-shaped soundbox and wire strings

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

cither; cithern; citole; cittern; gittern

Hypernyms ("cittern" is a kind of...):

guitar (a stringed instrument usually having six strings; played by strumming or plucking)

 Context examples 

It chanced that out of one of the bundles there stuck the end of what the clerk saw to be a cittern, so drawing it forth, he tuned it up and twanged a harmony to the merry lilt which the dancers played.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then their talk turned to minstrelsy, and the stranger knight drew forth a cittern, upon which he played the minne-lieder of the north, singing the while in a high cracked voice of Hildebrand and Brunhild and Siegfried, and all the strength and beauty of the land of Almain.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)