musical glasses

American  

plural noun

1. a set of drinking glasses filled with varying amounts of water to produce ringing tones of different pitches when the player's finger is rubbed around the wet rims.

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musical glasses British  

plural noun

1. another term for glass harmonica

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Etymology

Origin of musical glasses

First recorded in 1760–70

Example Sentences

Tribute to Foster''* which called for the use of musical glasses and bowls.

From Time Magazine Archive

Hopeful sufferers sat around the tubs clutching at protruding iron rods while harmoniums, pianos and musical glasses tinkled and Mesmer and assistants in purple silk coats hovered about.

From Time Magazine Archive

One day, when Migraine was worse, they had recourse to the musical glasses.

From Bouvard and Pécuchet A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life by Flaubert, Gustave

For a few minutes the conversation was frivolous, quite the Shakespeare and musical glasses kind of speech.

From The Green Mummy by Hume, Fergus

The most admirable discourses from the merely literary point of view on taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses, with some parenthetic reference to the matter in hand, are not criticism.

From Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 by Saintsbury, George