Definitions

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

  • noun A stringed musical instrument of northern Africa and southwest Asia resembling a lute.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See ud.

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

  • noun An Arabic and Turkish plucked string instrument resembling a lute.

Etymologies

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

[Arabic ‘ūd, wood, stem, lute, oud.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Arabic عود (ʿūd).

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Examples

  • In the second century B.C. a little circle appeared in Greek astronomical texts as a place holder, most probably an abbreviation of the Greek word oudén (“not one,” “nothing”).

    NUMBER CHRISTOPH J. SCRIBA 1968

  • The oud is a stringed Arab instrument that, after it was brought to Andalusian Spain in the eighth century, spawned the European lute, guitar and mandolin.

    He Plays Arab Music, Makes and Fixes Ouds 2009

  • And the oud was a ticket into the school, he says.

    Amid war's chaos, the fine art of oud making continues 2006

  • The Jansenists survive as a rapidly diminishing schismatic sect in Holland: they are known as oud-Roomsch or Old Roman Catholics and numbered less than 8,000 at the end of the last 19th century.

    Archive 2007-10-14 de Brantigny........................ 2007

  • The Jansenists survive as a rapidly diminishing schismatic sect in Holland: they are known as oud-Roomsch or Old Roman Catholics and numbered less than 8,000 at the end of the last 19th century.

    Forerunners of the French Revolution. Part 2b de Brantigny........................ 2007

  • Also know as oud bruin, the variety is marked by a distinct, piquant tartness that is produced by lactobacillus, an aggressive bacterium that infects the ale during fermentation.

    Phillies Zone 2010

  • Iraqi composer Naseer Shamma is such a master of the traditional Arab stringed instrument called the oud that he has taught himself to play one-handed.

    - Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community 2008

  • Iraqi composer Naseer Shamma is such a master of the traditional Arab stringed instrument called the oud that he has taught himself to play one-handed.

    Taipei Times 2008

  • Iraqi composer Naseer Shamma is such a master of the traditional Arab stringed instrument called the oud that he has taught himself to play one-handed.

    Taipei Times 2008

  • Iraqi composer Naseer Shamma is such a master of the traditional Arab stringed instrument called the oud that he has taught himself to play one-handed.

    - Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community 2008

Comments

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  • Not to be confused with oude.

    July 17, 2007

  • "The wooden body of the larger instrument may have given it its name: in Arabic, al-oud means 'from wood.' The oud would undergo a long development, emerging in the third century A.D. as a stable family of Arabic stringed instruments. Today the oud is known as ut or ud in Turkey, laouta in Greece, and udi in parts of Africa. The instrument spread across North Africa with the Muslims and appeared in Europe with the Moorish invasion of Spain in 711. There the al-oud became the lute."

    —Glenn Kurtz, Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 106

    November 3, 2008

  • I miss, how I miss my mother's ancient clock, family photos framed on the wall

    I miss my oud

    For all its silent, severed strings

    Time's out and I'm home alone

    The curfew hurts

    It hurts me, no it kills me, the killing of children near my home

    I'm afraid of tomorrow...

    - Fadwa Touqan, 'Longing Inspired by the Law of Gravity', translated from the Arabic by Chris Millis and Tania Tamari Nasir.

    November 10, 2008

  • “‘If the World’ opens with acoustic guitar lines suggesting a Middle Eastern oud but segues into wah-wah rhythm guitar and sustained strings fit for a blaxploitation soundtrack, while Mr. Rose unleashes something like a soul falsetto.�?

    The New York Times, How Axl Rose Spent All That Time , by Jon Pareles, November 20, 2008

    November 21, 2008

  • By referring to the singer as "Mr. Rose" throughout, the review comes across as amusingly quaint and po-faced; by the end I have in my mind a curious image of Axl as a Pooter-ish Victorian civil servant.

    November 21, 2008

  • I love that about the NYT--everyone rates an honorific.

    November 21, 2008

  • Just for fun

    February 16, 2010