Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A guitar of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An old instrument of the guitar kind strung with wire; a cithern.
  • To play upon a gittern.

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

  • intransitive verb To play on gittern.
  • noun An instrument like a guitar.

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

  • noun A relatively small, quill-plucked, gut-strung musical instrument, a predecessor of the guitar, that originated around the 13th century and came to Europe via Moorish Spain.
  • verb To play on the gittern.

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

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

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English giterne, from Old French guiterne, from Latin cithara; see cithara.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French guiterne, ultimately from Old Spanish guitarra.

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Examples

  • Lauren held his peace, flattening his palm over the strings of his gittern so that not even a breath of draft would set them murmuring.

    Oathblood Lackey, Mercedes 1998

  • Gwena, the dark girl, flashed dazzling white teeth in a vulpine grin, plucked a gittern from somewhere behind her, and began.

    Fiddler Fair Lackey, Mercedes 1998

  • He put his gittern into the stand by touch and knelt to blow the fire to flame.

    Oathblood Lackey, Mercedes 1998

  • The bard played a soft melody on his gittern as Lord Kemoc seemed to doze, the golden firelight flickering over both of them.

    Oathblood Lackey, Mercedes 1998

  • The musical group consisted of the tervardi, two hertasi playing drums, and four Tayledras who played harp, gittern, flute, and some sort of horn, respectively.

    Owlsight Lackey, Mercedes 1998

  • It might at one time have been a lute or a gittern or some such thing; there was no trace at all of its original finish, nor its strings or tuning pegs, and it had probably not been playable for centuries.

    Storm Breaking Lackey, Mercedes 1996

  • It might at one time have been a lute or a gittern or some such thing; there was no trace at all of its original finish, nor its strings or tuning pegs, and it had probably not been playable for centuries.

    Storm Breaking Lackey, Mercedes 1996

  • The warmth must have reached him, for as she reached the chorus, he shook himself, and suddenly his harp joined the jaunty chords of her gittern as his voice joined hers in harmony.

    The Robin And The Kestrel Lackey, Mercedes 1993

  • She'd been pierced with the sharp ends of nails and wire so often that her finger-ends looked like pincushions, and it was just as well that they were not going to be playing their instruments for a while, for her fingers needed to heal before she picked up her gittern or harp again.

    The Robin And The Kestrel Lackey, Mercedes 1993

  • Stefen stood up and slung his gittern case over one shoulder before replying.

    Magic's Price Lackey, Mercedes 1990

Comments

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  • rt, zing!

    August 30, 2008