Word.ws English Dictionary

aeolina

aeolina noun: an early type of harmonica with metal plates enclosing free reeds.

Noun

aeolina (plural aeolinas)

  1. (historical) An early type of harmonica with metal plates enclosing free reeds.
    • When in the 18th century, European organ-builders, acousticians, physicists, etc., heard this remarkable free reed, they obviously were fascinated by it for a wealth of free reed instruments appeared in the early 19th century. These instruments varied in size and type. Some were portable, small and...1992, Toni Charuhas Meekins, “The Accordion”, in Ronald Flynn, Edwin Davison, Edward Chavez, editors, The Golden Age of the Accordion, Schertz, Tex.: Flynn Associates Publishing Company, →ISBN, part...
    • Organ-builders were early on the scene in the eighteenth century, but soon there were the first mouth-blown instruments such as the aeolian or aeolina, which was a simple set of free reeds mounted side by side.2006, Rebecca Berkley, Andrew Cleaton, Alan Charlton, Andrew Cronshaw, Robin Newton, Jeremy Siepmann, “The Spread of Free-Reed Instruments”, in Lucien Jenkins, editor, The Billboard Illustrated...

Examples of aeolina in a sentence

  • Some were portable, small and mouth-blown like the “blow accordion,” harmonica, aeolina, and symphonion.1992, Toni Charuhas Meekins, “The Accordion”, in Ronald Flynn, Edwin Davison, Edward Chavez, editors, The Golden Age of the Accordion...
  • Aeolinas and aeolodicons were similar to the more popular physharmonica, a four-octave keyboard instrument with free reeds invented by Anton Haeckl of Vienna.2016, Myles W. Jackson, “Charles Wheatstone: Musical Instrument Making, Natural Philosophy, and Acoustics in Early Nineteenth-Century...
  • The principle applied to the aeolina was of a series of small springs fitted in apertures in a metallic plate, which vibrated when breathed over.2021, Edward J. Gillin, “The Laboratory of Harmony: The Transformation of Sound within British Science, 1815–46”, in Sound Authorities...

Forms of aeolina

pluralaeolinas

Origin of aeolina

From Aeolus (see Aeolian harp) + -ina. Piecewise doublet of Aeoline. Developed under this name by the English physicist and inventor Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875).

Questions about aeolina

What does aeolina mean?
Aeolina means an early type of harmonica with metal plates enclosing free reeds.
How do you use aeolina in a sentence?
Some were portable, small and mouth-blown like the “blow accordion,” harmonica, aeolina, and symphonion.
What part of speech is aeolina?
Aeolina is a noun.
What is the plural of aeolina?
The plural of aeolina is aeolinas.

Words near aeolina in the dictionary

  1. aeolidacean
  2. aeolidaceans
  3. aeolidiid
  4. aeolidiids
  5. aeolids
  6. aeolina
  7. aeolinas
  8. Aeoline
  9. aeolipile
  10. aeolipiles
  11. aeolipyle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: aeolina (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “aeolina.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/aeolina. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.