| / English Dictionary |
GUITAR
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A stringed instrument usually having six strings; played by strumming or plucking
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("guitar" is a kind of...):
stringed instrument (a musical instrument in which taut strings provide the source of sound)
Meronyms (parts of "guitar"):
fingerboard (a narrow strip of wood on the neck of some stringed instruments (violin or cello or guitar etc) where the strings are held against the wood with the fingers)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "guitar"):
acoustic guitar (sound is not amplified by electrical means)
bass guitar (the guitar with six strings that has the lowest pitch)
cither; cithern; citole; cittern; gittern (a 16th century musical instrument resembling a guitar with a pear-shaped soundbox and wire strings)
electric guitar (a guitar whose sound is amplified by electrical means)
Hawaiian guitar; steel guitar (guitar whose steel strings are twanged while being pressed with a movable steel bar for a glissando effect)
uke; ukulele (a small guitar having four strings)
Derivation:
guitarist (a musician who plays the guitar)
Context examples:
Very clever were some of their productions, pasteboard guitars, antique lamps made of old-fashioned butter boats covered with silver paper, gorgeous robes of old cotton, glittering with tin spangles from a pickle factory, and armor covered with the same useful diamond shaped bits left in sheets when the lids of preserve pots were cut out.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
It was on one of these days, when my cottagers periodically rested from labour—the old man played on his guitar, and the children listened to him—that I observed the countenance of Felix was melancholy beyond expression; he sighed frequently, and once his father paused in his music, and I conjectured by his manner that he inquired the cause of his son’s sorrow.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
After tea we had the guitar; and Dora sang those same dear old French songs about the impossibility of ever on any account leaving off dancing, La ra la, La ra la, until I felt a much greater Monster than before.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
The next morning Felix went out to his work, and after the usual occupations of Agatha were finished, the Arabian sat at the feet of the old man, and taking his guitar, played some airs so entrancingly beautiful that they at once drew tears of sorrow and delight from my eyes.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
She courted Jip, though Jip never responded; listened, day after day, to the guitar, though I am afraid she had no taste for music; never attacked the Incapables, though the temptation must have been severe; went wonderful distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that she found out Dora wanted; and never came in by the garden, and missed her from the room, but she would call out, at the foot of the stairs, in a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house: Where's Little Blossom?
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the empress of my heart sing enchanted ballads in the French language, generally to the effect that, whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance, Ta ra la, Ta ra la! accompanying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling a guitar.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Then Traddles and I played a game or two at cribbage; and Dora singing to the guitar the while, it seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream of mine, and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet over.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
And by the by, it used to be uncommonly strange to me to consider, I remember, as I sat in Court too, how those dim old judges and doctors wouldn't have cared for Dora, if they had known her; how they wouldn't have gone out of their senses with rapture, if marriage with Dora had been proposed to them; how Dora might have sung, and played upon that glorified guitar, until she led me to the verge of madness, yet not have tempted one of those slow-goers an inch out of his road!
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
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