Art & MusicGreek → English
Gittern
/ˈɡɪtərn/noun
A small gut-strung medieval plucked instrument with a rounded back, carved from a single block of wood.
The Greek roots
κιθάρα
kithára
lyre-like instrument
Literally: “kithara”
Follow a root:κιθάρα5 words
The story of the word
English took it from Old French guiterne, which came from Latin cithara, so gittern and guitar are the same ancient word arriving by two routes at different dates. One nearly complete gittern survives, the Warwick Castle instrument now in the British Museum, carved with hunters and foliage. Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale puts gitterns in the tavern scene, which tells you what company the instrument kept.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
guitarcitharacitternzither
In a sentence
The player switched from gittern to harp between numbers.