gittern
See also: Gittern
English
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old French guiterne, ultimately from Old (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Spanish guitarra.
Noun
gittern (plural gitterns)
- (music) A small, quill-plucked, gut-strung musical instrument, most commonly with three to four strings in doubles courses; it is a flat-backed predecessor of the guitar, and it originated around the 13th century, coming to Europe via Moorish Spain.
- Synonym: quintern
- 1820, John Keats, “Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. A Story from Boccaccio.”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, stanza XIX, page 58:
- Now they can no more hear thy ghittern’s tune, / For venturing syllables that ill beseem / The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.
Alternative forms
See also
Verb
gittern (third-person singular simple present gitterns, present participle gitterning, simple past and past participle gitterned)
- To play on the gittern.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)