guitar

[ gi-tahr ]

noun
  1. a stringed musical instrument with a long, fretted neck, a flat, somewhat violinlike body, and typically six strings, which are plucked with the fingers or with a plectrum.

Origin of guitar

1
1615–25; <Spanish guitarra<Arabic kītārah ≪ Greek kithárakithara

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use guitar in a sentence

  • Afterwards we danced till morning came, or sang to the sweet tinkle of the guitars.

    Stories of California | Ella M. Sexton
  • In my own youth, I sometimes danced with beer-light feet to the music of worldly guitars; and yet I reached a man's estate.

    Blind Man's Lantern | Allen Kim Lang
  • The bands were all inside the tennis courts, with their guitars and mixers and keyboards and even a drum kit.

    Little Brother | Cory Doctorow
  • Inside, near the bar itself, two boys with guitars were playing and singing the tragi-comic peasant songs of the south.

    The Five Arrows | Allan Chase
  • Some of the musicians formed small groups of four or five with banjos or guitars and provided entertainment to the rooms.

British Dictionary definitions for guitar

guitar

/ (ɡɪˈtɑː) /


noun
  1. music a plucked stringed instrument originating in Spain, usually having six strings, a flat sounding board with a circular sound hole in the centre, a flat back, and a fretted fingerboard. Range: more than three octaves upwards from E on the first leger line below the bass staff: See also electric guitar, bass guitar, Hawaiian guitar

Origin of guitar

1
C17: from Spanish guitarra, from Arabic qītār, from Greek kithara cithara

Derived forms of guitar

  • guitarist, noun
  • guitar-like, adjective

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for guitar

guitar

A stringed musical instrument (see strings) usually played by strumming or plucking. Guitars are widely used in folk music and, often amplified electronically, in country and western music and rock 'n' roll.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.