A stringed instrument with a flat, approximately triangular body and multiple strings, popular during the Renaissance and medieval periods in Europe.
A variant spelling of 'cittern' or 'cither,' derived from Greek kithara by way of various European languages. The word entered English in the 15th-16th centuries when the instrument was fashionable.
The cithern was so popular in Renaissance England that it appears in Shakespeare and other period documents, and because it was cheaper than a lute and easier to learn, it was considered the 'people's instrument'—the guitar of its time, with a similar social status as an accessible everyman instrument.
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