guitar

American  

[gi-tahr] / gɪˈtɑr /

noun

• guitars
  plural

1. a stringed musical instrument with a long, fretted neck, a flat, somewhat violinlike body, and typically six strings, which are plucked with the fingers or with a plectrum.

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guitar British  

/ ɡɪˈtɑː /

noun

1. music a plucked stringed instrument originating in Spain, usually having six strings, a flat sounding board with a circular sound hole in the centre, a flat back, and a fretted fingerboard. Range: more than three octaves upwards from E on the first leger line below the bass staff See also electric guitar bass guitar Hawaiian guitar

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guitar Cultural  

1. A stringed musical instrument (see strings) usually played by strumming or plucking. Guitars are widely used in folk music and, often amplified electronically, in country and western music and rock 'n' roll.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• guitarist
  noun
• guitar-like
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• guitars
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of guitar

1615–25; < Spanish guitarra < Arabic kītārah ≪ Greek kithára kithara

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Explanation

A guitar is a musical instrument with a long neck and strings. When you play the guitar, you press the strings with one hand to make a note, and strum with the other hand (unless, of course, you are playing air guitar). The section of a guitar where your fingers form a note is called the "fingerboard." An acoustic guitar has a hollow body that vibrates with warm sound when you pluck or strum the strings, and an electric guitar is solid and plugs into an amplifier that projects the sound. The word guitar comes from the Spanish guitarra, which has its roots in the Greek kithara, a lyre-like stringed instrument.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

guitar guitars

The singer then began to play his guitar and perform What is Enough, which featured emotional and reflective lyrics.

From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026

It felt cathartic when he hit that song’s freaked-out chorus — “There’s a bomb in my car!” — in a hail of guitar noise.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026

Andrew, were you channeling Peter Buck on guitar?

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026

On “Souls of Fire,” Mr. Light’s guitar track is reversed—heard backward—to produce briefly glowing orbs of sound that intensify the song’s elegiac mood.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026

She’d already interviewed the grill dads, and the girl with the guitar, and a bunch of the people who’d stood in line for food.

From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz

Those guitars on the bridge are the most beautiful thing he’s ever done.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026

He said the biggest-selling guitars today are almost identical to designs going back to the early 1950s.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

"You've always been a bit gung-ho with your guitars," Gallagher said, reminiscing about borrowing the instrument - a black 1982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo - to appear on the cover of Oasis' 1994 debut single Supersonic.

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026

“It has none of those elements one sees so often: festivals of wrought iron, little Juliet balconies, guitars strumming in every corner,” he recalled in his 1998 interview.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026

It was as if the aliens had come down to Earth at last but what they wanted was not our genetic code, or our fresh water, or our electric guitars.

From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day

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