Rebeck

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A medieval stringed instrument with a pear-shaped body and a few strings, played with a bow across the strings
2. An old bowed string instrument, similar to an early fiddle, with a rounded body and a narrow neck
3. A pear-shaped fiddle-like instrument from the Middle Ages, played with a bow and popular in early European music

Etymology: The instrument's name travelled a long way before it reached English. It began as the Arabic "rabāb", the name of a bowed string instrument, and passed into Medieval Latin and Old Provençal forms such as "rebel" before the French version settled as "rebec". Along the way the name was altered, and English later took the French form in the spelling "rebec", with "rebeck" as an older variant. The English word "ribibe", an earlier borrowing of the same Arabic root through a different route, was a close relative, so the family of spellings shows the instrument arriving in Europe more than once. Because the Arabic original names a bowed instrument, "rebeck" carries the idea of a bow-played fiddle in its very root, even though the medieval instrument it describes was pear-shaped and small enough to rest on the shoulder or knee.

Synonyms: rebec, rebel fiddle