jaw harp
jaw harp is the alternative form of Jew's harp.
Meaning of Jew's harp
Noun
Jew's harp (plural Jew's harps)
- A musical instrument consisting of a thin flexible reed mounted in a stiff crescent frame. The narrow end of the frame is held between the teeth and the reed is plucked to produce a note of constant pitch. Melodies and overtones are created by changing the shape of the oral cavity.
- The lad, his son, had obtained a Jew's-harp, and learned to play upon it the profane airs of "Yankee Doodle," "Hail Columbia," "St. Patrick's Day," and "Auld Lang Syne."1850, T. S. Arthur, “Deacon Smith and his Violin”, in Sketches of Life and Character, Philadelphia: J. W. Bradley, →OCLC, page 70
- Synonyms:
- guimbarde, mouth harp, mouth organ, Jew's-trump and trump, Judaic harp
Forms of jaw harp
| plural | jaw harps |
|---|---|
| alternative form | jaw's harp |
| alternative form | jaws harp |
| alternative form | jaws' harp |
| alternative form | Jaws'-harp |
| alternative form | jaws-harp |
| alternative form | Jaws-harp |
| alternative form | Jaw's harp |
Origin of jaw harp
Unclear; it either comes from, or is the origin of, Jew's harp. It probably does not come from the common English word jaw. See Jew's harp for more.
Words formed from jaw harp
Questions about jaw harp
- What is jaw harp the alternative form of?
- Jaw harp is the alternative form of Jew's harp.
Words near jaw harp in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: jaw harp (page history and authors); Jew's harp (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: “jaw harp.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/jaw_harp. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.