Synonyms

vibraphone

American

[vahy-bruh-fohn] / ˈvaɪ brəˌfoʊn /

noun

Also vibes a musical percussion instrument that resembles a marimba and is played with mallets, but that has metal instead of wooden bars and has a set of electrically powered resonators for sustaining the tone or creating a vibrato.

vibraphone British

/ ˈvaɪbrəˌfəʊn, ˈvaɪbrəˌhɑːp /

noun

a percussion instrument, used esp in jazz, consisting of a set of metal bars placed over tubular metal resonators, which are made to vibrate electronically

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

vibraphonist

noun

Etymology

Origin of vibraphone

First recorded in 1925–30; from Latin vibrā(re) “to shake” + -phone

Compare meaning

How does vibraphone compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

vibraphone vs. xylophone

Vocabulary lists containing vibraphone

Musical Instruments - High School

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023