Art & MusicGreek → English
Cithara
/ˈsɪθərə/noun
The large wooden lyre of ancient Greece, played upright and held against the body by a strap.
The Greek roots
κιθάρα
kithára
lyre-like instrument
Literally: “kithara”
Follow a root:κιθάρα5 words
The story of the word
The kithara was the professional's instrument: heavy, loud, made of hollowed wood, played by competitors at the Panathenaic games, while the lighter tortoiseshell lyre was for amateurs and schoolboys. The word itself is probably pre-Greek, borrowed from whatever was spoken in the Aegean before Greek arrived. Its descendants are everywhere, since guitar, zither, cittern and gittern all trace back to this one instrument.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
guitarzithercitterngittern
In a sentence
A cithara player took second place, and the crowd disagreed loudly with the judges.