Art & MusicGreek → English
Castanet
/ˌkæstəˈnɛt/noun
One of a pair of hollowed shells clicked together in the hand to keep rhythm.
The Greek roots
κάστανον
kástanon
chestnut
Literally: “little chestnut”
Follow a root:κάστανον2 words
The story of the word
Spanish castañeta is a little chestnut, from castaña, from Greek κάστανον. The instrument is named for its shape rather than its material, which is usually a dense hardwood and now often fibreglass. Whether the Greek word is Greek at all is doubtful: it may have come in from Asia Minor, and ancient writers linked it to Καστανέα, a town in Pontus known for its trees.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Spanish → English
- First recorded
- 1640s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
In a sentence
She played the castanets with her wrists barely moving, the sound running ahead of the guitar.