Word.ws English Dictionary

cithern

UK/ˈsɪθən/US/ˈsɪθəɹn/

cithern is the archaic form of cittern.

Meaning of cittern

Noun

cittern (plural citterns)

  1. A stringed instrument (chordophone), played with a plectrum (a pick), and most commonly possessing four wire strings and chromatic frets, which is a precursor to the modern day guitar.
    • This discourse took us much time, till it was time to go to bed; but we being merry, we bade my Lady goodnight, and intended to have gone to the Post-house to drink, and hear a pretty girl play of the cittern (and indeed we should have lain there, but by a mistake we did not), but it was late, and...1661 January 17, Samuel Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys: January 1661

Forms of cithern

pluralcitherns

Questions about cithern

What is cithern the archaic form of?
Cithern is the archaic form of cittern.
How do you pronounce cithern?
Cithern is pronounced /ˈsɪθən/ (UK).

Words near cithern in the dictionary

  1. citharode
  2. citharodes
  3. citharoedic
  4. citharæ
  5. cither
  6. cithern
  7. citherns
  8. cithers
  9. cithren
  10. cithrens
  11. Citian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cithern (page history and authors); cittern (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: “cithern.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cithern. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.