Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

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.

Emboldened by a recent European court ruling, Fender is trying to gain control over what is by far the world’s most popular electric guitar shape more than seven decades after it was released.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 27, 2026

The company likens the approach to an electric guitar.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 25, 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

She’s 16, and by now she knows how to issue perfect sound bites: “I think every citizen should be given an electric guitar on her sixteenth birthday.”

From Salon • Jan. 27, 2026

My dad, who only had on his sock monkey pajama bottoms, turned on his electric guitar and made this earsplitting screechy sound to scare off the raccoon.

From "Crenshaw" by Katherine Applegate

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Look it up. Learn it forever.

Remember "electric guitar" for good with VocabTrainer. Expand your vocabulary effortlessly with personalized learning tools that adapt to your goals.

Take me to Vocabulary.com