Cimbaloms

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of large hammered dulcimer, typically played with mallets and producing rich, resonant tones in folk and classical music contexts
2. A musical instrument resembling a dulcimer, characterized by strings stretched across a wooden frame that are struck to create sound
3. An instrument from the zither family, known for its use in traditional music, where sound is produced by striking metal strings with mallets

Etymology: "Cimbaloms" is the plural of "cimbalom", and the singular is the form that carries the history. The name came into English from Hungarian, where "cimbalom" denotes the large trapezoidal dulcimer-like instrument that became central to Hungarian and Romani folk and café music. Its ultimate roots lie in the Latin "cymbalum", the same word that gives English "cymbal", so the two are doublets: one entered English as a cymbal, the other travelled through Hungary and came back as the name of a stringed instrument. The shared ancestry makes sense once you see the instruments' logic. Both the percussive cymbal and the cimbalom are built around metal, and the Latin "cymbalum" was a term for clashing or ringing vessels. Hungarian took the word for a struck, resonant object and applied it to a box of strings that the player strikes with light hammers, or mallets. Early Hungarian usage was therefore a matter of sound rather than of shape.

Synonyms: dulcimers, hammered dulcimers