cithara

American  

[sith-er-uh] / ˈsɪθ ər ə /

noun

1. kithara.

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cithara British  

/ ˈsɪθərə /

noun

1. a stringed musical instrument of ancient Greece and elsewhere, similar to the lyre and played with a plectrum

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Other Word Forms

• citharist noun

Etymology

Origin of cithara

C18: from Greek kithara

Example Sentences

In fact, Nero often played a type of lyre called a cithara.

From Scientific American • Aug. 9, 2023

Diaphanous gold and black chiffon dresses, bound with winding ribbons, pleated and worn with metallic cithara garlands.

From New York Times • May 30, 2017

The flute or aulos does not seem to have been used in connection with the cithara at all, and the Greeks had nothing corresponding to what we call an orchestra.

From A Popular History of the Art of Music From the Earliest Times Until the Present by Mathews, W. S. B. (William Smythe Babcock)

The first stringed instrument to which this new device was applied was the clavicytherium, or keyed cithara.

From How the Piano Came to Be by Glover, Ellye Howell

From such evidence as we now possess, it would seem that the evolution of the early guitar with a neck from the Greek cithara took place under Greek influence in the Christian East.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 6 "Groups, Theory of" to "Gwyniad" by Various