mandolin
Americannoun
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mandolins
plural
noun
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a plucked stringed instrument related to the lute, having four pairs of strings tuned in ascending fifths stretched over a small light body with a fretted fingerboard. It is usually played with a plectrum, long notes being sustained by the tremolo
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a vegetable slicer consisting of a flat stainless-steel frame with adjustable cutting blades
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of mandolin
1700–10; < Italian mandolino, diminutive of mandola, variant of mandora, alteration of pandora bandore
Explanation
A mandolin is a bit like a small guitar — it's a musical instrument with a wooden body, strings, and a long neck. A musician plays a mandolin by plucking or strumming the strings. Its sound is higher than a guitar, and it's often played alongside lower-pitched instruments, such as banjos and guitars. The mandolin is popular around the world and in many different kinds of music; in the United States, it's played most often in country music. The word itself comes from the Italian mandolino, which is an altered form of the Latin pandura, or "three-stringed lute."
Vocabulary lists containing mandolin
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:
“He remains an important, underrecognized figure in the history of bluegrass and an influential mandolin player whose genius is recognized more readily by his fellow musicians than by the casual fan.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
He used to play songs for me on the mandolin.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 2026
He played the guitar and mandolin, and she played the violin.
From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2025
He started off on the guitar, then moved onto the mandolin, and is now trying to learn the fiddle, all "just for enjoyment".
From BBC ● Jan. 12, 2025
Some just hold them—a tarnished flute, a mandolin missing three of eight terribly corroded strings.
From "What the Night Sings" by Vesper Stamper
Stipe now enunciated his lyrics, which shaded into social commentary, while the arrangements drew from a palette that included string sections, mandolins and an increasing reliance on Mills’ textured keyboard parts.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2024
Dulak still draws inspiration from nature, and from making mandolins in the workshop next to his home.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 4, 2023
M. M. Keeravani, the song’s composer, used duffs, an Indian skin drum, for the main beats, adding in mandolins for the melody.
From New York Times ● Mar. 12, 2023
Meloni said she had no intention of ditching current support for Ukraine, saying the cliched image of Italy being a lightweight nation of "spaghetti and mandolins" had to end.
From Reuters ● Aug. 25, 2022
Four boys get up from the crowd, with mandolins and homemade drums in hand.
From "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers" by Loung Ung
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
