From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdulcimerdul‧ci‧mer /ˈdʌlsəmə $ -ər/ noun [countable] 1 APMa musical instrument with up to 100 strings, played with light hammers2 APMa small instrument with strings that is popular in American folk music, and is played across your knees
Examples from the Corpus
dulcimer• The thickness would suit a guitar but are unnecessarily heavy for a dulcimer less than half its width.• Soundposts are an important feature of bowed instruments but are unsuitable for plucked instruments and will deaden the sound of a dulcimer.• And he had no idea what a dulcimer sounded like anyway.• Coleridge's inability to explain the dome leads him to try and carry the damsel with a dulcimer.• One of the KLEZmer special instruments was the hammered dulcimer, known as a TSIMbal.• Anderson shares the bill with Justina & Joyce, famed for their lush vocal harmonies accompanied by guitar and lap dulcimer.• A modern dulcimer is more like the lower one in the photograph, with a double first string.• The solo dulcimer player, Eugene Gladkov, is clearly a virtuoso of the first order.Origin dulcimer (1400-1500) French doulcemer, perhaps from Latin dulce melos “sweet song” 