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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

"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

Noun Inflected Forms

Etymology

Origin of electric guitar

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

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

The dynamic singer delivered every lyric with his whole body as he frenetically tapped the buttons of his brightly colored accordion, doing his best to make the squeezebox sound like an electric guitar.

From Los Angeles Times Mar. 25, 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

He was wearing an electric guitar, slung around his neck on a strap.

From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut

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