electric guitar

American  

noun

electric guitars plural

1. a guitar equipped with electric or magnetic pickups that permit its sound to be amplified and fed to a loudspeaker.

---

electric guitar British  

noun

1. an electronically amplified guitar, used mainly in pop music Compare acoustic guitar

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• electric guitars
  plural

Etymology

Origin of electric guitar

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

We would sit knee-to-knee the room was so small, and he’d play the electric guitar.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 26, 2026

He joined Fleetwood Mac in the 1990s for their 16th studio album, Time, and toured with them, before later starting a sustainable electric guitar company with industrial designer Ravi Sawhney in 2004.

From BBC • Apr. 22, 2026

To her right stood Brandon Ross, whose searing yet disarmingly tender electric guitar tones built like waves, exploded like starbursts or sketched lines of staggering intricacy.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 4, 2026

Thudding drums, an electric guitar that chugs like a tank’s engine turning over and blaring trumpet fanfare announce the onset of football on CBS, Fox and NBC.

From Salon • Mar. 18, 2026

Now listen to the same phrase played by an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar with twelve steel strings34 and an acoustic guitar with six nylon strings.

From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones