glassichord

English

Etymology

glass +‎ -i- +‎ chord

Noun

glassichord (plural glassichords)

1. A 19th-century musical instrument made of glass plates that are struck by hammers or sticks.
   • 1844, United States. Patent Office, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents, page 514:

     A patent has been granted for the combination of the glassichord with the piano; and in the same connexion an improvement has been made in the tones of the glassichord itself, by a more elastic mode of suspending the strips of glass than has been before used.

   • 1870, Modern American Spiritualism:

     Amongst other phenomena, let it be remembered that the glassichord and the drum were skilfully played upon with both sticks.

   • 1883 March, “Remarkable History of a Harvard Student”, in Facts, volume 2, number 1, page 51:

     The instruments usually comprised a guitar, an accordion, several bells, a glassichord struck with cork hammers, and a small drum with the requisite sticks.

2. Synonym of glass harmonica
   • 1879, Horace Wemyss Smith, Life and Correspondence of the Rev. William Smith:

     He revived and improved the harmonica, or glassichord, and extended his speculations to the finer arts; showing that he could taste and criticise even the compositions of a Handel!

   • 1962, Lubov Breit Keefer, Baltimore's Music: The Haven of the American Composer, page 19:

     Curiously, he omitted the only indigenous instrument, Franklin's glassichord.

   • 2017, Daniel Mark Epstein, The Loyal Son: The War in Ben Franklin's House, page 88:

     His glassichord was a sensation in the intersecting spheres of art and science, capitalizing as it did upon a fad in London of playing concertos upon musical glasses.

3. (figurative) Anything that produces a similarly pure continuous sound.
   • 1867, Ersilia: or, The ordeal, page 130:

     The moveless, still air acted as a glassichord on the waters, which rang under the shrill voice of the singer.

   • 1887, William Hamilton Gibson, Happy Hunting-grounds: A Tribute to the Woods and Fields, page 119:

     Turning upon his perch , he brings to view his “glassichord," or shrilling organ, upon his back — a glass-like spot upon his wings just behind the thorax, or what might appear to be facetiously inclined as an exceedingly uncomfortable-looking collar.

   • 1897, William Sloane Kennedy, In Portia's Gardens, page 220:

     Bobolink. For notes from the "glassichord" of fifteen bobolinks see Chapter III., near end.