mandolin

mandolin (măn'dəlĭn`, măn`dəlĭn'), musical instrument of the lute family, with a half-pear-shaped body, a fretted neck, and a variable number of strings, plucked with the fingers or with a plectrum. The earlier mandolin, with five double strings, was developed from the mandola, a 17th-century lute. The Neapolitan mandolin, a smaller type having four pairs of strings, became popular in the 18th cent. and is the usual present-day mandolin. In popular music it is generally played with a tremolo motion. Notable uses of the mandolin in serious music are in Mozart's Don Giovanni and in pieces by Beethoven and Mahler.

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mandolin

Small stringed instrument related to the lute. It evolved in the 17th century in Italy, but its present form was strongly influenced by the 19th-century maker Pasquale Vinaccia (1806–82) of Naples. It has a pear-shaped body with a deeply vaulted back, a short fretted fingerboard, and four pairs of steel strings. (The American folk mandolin is a shallow, flat-backed version.) It is played with a plectrum; each pair of strings is strummed rapidly back and forth to produce a characteristic tremolo.

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mandolin, mandoline

a plucked stringed instrument related to the lute, having four pairs of strings tuned in ascending fifths stretched over a small light body with a fretted fingerboard. It is usually played with a plectrum, long notes being sustained by the tremolo