dulcimer

[duhl-suh-mer]

noun

Also called hammered dulcimer, hammer dulcimer. a trapezoidal zither with metal strings that are struck with light hammers.

Also called mountain dulcimer. a modern folk instrument related to the guitar and plucked with the fingers.

Origin of dulcimer

1560–70; alteration of Middle English dowcemere < Middle French doulcemer, dissimilated variant of doulcemele < Old Italian dolcimelo, dolzemele < Latin dulce melos sweet song. See dulcet, melic

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for dulcimer

Contemporary Examples of dulcimer

You'll hear a marimba and dulcimer every so often in this crescendoing collection of stellar four-part harmonies.
10 Great Bands You’ve Never Heard
Winston Ross
May 26, 2013

Historical Examples of dulcimer

It has survived in Europe as the dulcimer, or the German hackbrett.
A Popular History of the Art of Music
W. S. B. Mathews
The violin, guitar, and dulcimer had lain utterly neglected and unstrung.
Doctor Jones' Picnic
S. E. Chapman
It was they who gave us the dulcimer, the hautbois and the guitar; it was they who invented the serenade.
The Merry-Go-Round
Carl Van Vechten
Sarmundal, from Kattyawar, Hindustan; a kind of dulcimer in a case.
Musical Myths and Facts, Volume I (of 2)
Carl Engel
There was a dulcimer in the room aunt Corinne occupied with her mother.
Old Caravan Days
Mary Hartwell Catherwood

British Dictionary definitions for dulcimer

dulcimer

noun music

a tuned percussion instrument consisting of a set of strings of graduated length stretched over a sounding board and struck with a pair of hammers

an instrument used in US folk music, consisting of an elliptical body, a fretted fingerboard, and usually three strings plucked with a goose quill

Word Origin for dulcimer

C15: from Old French doulcemer, from Old Italian dolcimelo, from dolce sweet, from Latin dulcis + -melo, perhaps from Greek melos song

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

Word Origin and History for dulcimer

late 15c., from Middle French doulce mer, variant of doulcemele, perhaps from doulz de mer, said to represent Latin dulce "sweet" + melos "song," from Greek melos "melody."