Rubebe

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An early medieval bowed string instrument, an older form of the rebec, played with a bow and popular in Europe and the Arab world
2. A pear-shaped, bowed stringed instrument of the Middle Ages that was the forerunner of the fiddle family
3. A medieval fiddle-like instrument with a few strings, played with a bow and often associated with minstrels and folk music

Etymology: "Rubebe" names a medieval bowed string instrument, a small pear-shaped fiddle with a few strings. Its name comes from the Arabic "rabāb", the word for a bowed lute that was already common across the Islamic world. As the instrument spread into Europe, the Arabic word travelled with it and was reshaped by each language it passed through. Medieval Latin took it as "rubeba", and Old French as "rubebe", the form English borrowed. English also kept a shortened relative of the name, "rebec". The two words are doublets: they come from the same Arabic source by different routes, and the shorter form became the one most often used for the instrument.

Synonyms: rebec