Chordophone

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A musical instrument that produces sound primarily through the vibration of strings, which can be plucked, bowed, or struck, typically classified within the string family
2. An instrument characterized by its ability to create sound through vibrating strings, often manipulated with various techniques such as strumming or drawing a bow across them
3. A type of instrument that generates sound by the oscillation of strings, commonly found in ensembles and featured in diverse musical traditions worldwide

Etymology: Chordophone is a compound built from two Greek elements. "Chordē" meant "string" (originally gut, as in the intestine of an animal, since gut was used for strings), and "phōnē" meant "sound" or "voice." Together they describe any instrument whose sound comes from a vibrating string. The term is a modern scientific coinage, not an ancient one. Ancient Greeks had no word of this exact form for the category. It was built from classical roots when instrument classification became a systematic concern in Europe, and it belongs to the same family of formations as "idiophone," "membranophone," and "aerophone." Those four terms were later organized into the Hornbostel-Sachs system, which sorts instruments by how they produce sound. The contrast with "aerophone" is useful. Where a chordophone sounds through a vibrating string, an aerophone sounds through vibrating air, so the two words name the sound source rather than the instrument's shape or use. The guitar, violin, and piano all fall under chordophone for this reason, even though they look and play very differently.