Definitions

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

  • noun An acoustic instrument consisting of a sounding box with one string and a movable bridge, used to study musical tones.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An acoustical instrument, invented at a very early date in Egypt or Greece, consisting of a long resonance-box over which a single string of gut or wire is stretched, the vibrating length, and thus the pitch, of which is fixed by a movable bridge.

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

  • noun (Mus.) An instrument for experimenting upon the mathematical relations of musical sounds. It consists of a single string stretched between two bridges, one or both of which are movable, and which stand upon a graduated rule for the purpose of readily changing and measuring the length of the part of the string between them.

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

  • noun A musical instrument for experimenting with the mathematical relations of musical sounds, consisting of a single string stretched between two bridges, one or both of which can be moved, and which stand upon a graduated rule for the purpose of changing and measuring the length of the part of the string between them.

Etymologies

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

[Middle English monocorde, from Old French, from Medieval Latin monochordum, from Greek monokhordon : mono-, mono- + khordē, string; see cord.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin monochordon. See chord and compare mainchord.

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