mandolin
Americannoun
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a musical instrument with a pear-shaped wooden body and a fretted neck.
noun
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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
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a vegetable slicer consisting of a flat stainless-steel frame with adjustable cutting blades
Other Word Forms
- mandolinist noun
Etymology
Origin of mandolin
1700–10; < Italian mandolino, diminutive of mandola, variant of mandora, alteration of pandora bandore
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He's a massive Steelers fan, a music obsessive, and has played mandolin and guitar in bluegrass and country-rock bands in Brooklyn, Mexico City, Baltimore and Pittsburgh.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 30, 2026
He played the guitar and mandolin, and she played the violin.
From Slate • Jan. 26, 2025
Take “Time on My Hands,” for instance, in which Starr contributes a heartbreaking vocal about the fleeting nature of human experience, or “Come Back,” wherein Ringo contemplates loneliness with fiddle and mandolin accompaniment.
From Salon • Jan. 10, 2025
Bratton also brought his music to the show, always carrying a guitar or mandolin.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 26, 2024
The notes of a mandolin drifting like soap bubbles from an illuminated window.
From "The Reader" by Traci Chee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.