Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
noun
A musical instrument made of blown-glass bowls mounted on a spindle turned originally by a foot pedal, and played with wetted fingers, producing an ethereal sound. Technically, it is a crystallophone.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Coined by Benjamin Franklin, its inventor; built on Italian armonia (“harmony”). Glass harmonica is a corruption of Franklin's original word, a back-formation influenced by harmonica (a reed instrument invented sixty years later).
