glassichord

plural glassichords

1. A 19th-century musical instrument made of glass plates that are struck by hammers or sticks.

   Amongst other phenomena, let it be remembered that the glassichord and the drum were skilfully played upon with both sticks.

   1870, Modern American Spiritualism

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   A patent has been granted for the combination of the glassichord with the piano; and in the same connexion an improvement has been made in the tones of the glassichord itself, by a more elastic mode of suspending the strips of glass than has been before used.

   1844, United States. Patent Office, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents, page 514

   The instruments usually comprised a guitar, an accordion, several bells, a glassichord struck with cork hammers, and a small drum with the requisite sticks.

   1883 March, “Remarkable History of a Harvard Student”, in Facts, volume 2, number 1, page 51

2. Synonym of glass harmonica.

   Curiously, he omitted the only indigenous instrument, Franklin's glassichord.

   1962, Lubov Breit Keefer, Baltimore's Music: The Haven of the American Composer, page 19

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   He revived and improved the harmonica, or glassichord, and extended his speculations to the finer arts; showing that he could taste and criticise even the compositions of a Handel!

   1879, Horace Wemyss Smith, Life and Correspondence of the Rev. William Smith

   His glassichord was a sensation in the intersecting spheres of art and science, capitalizing as it did upon a fad in London of playing concertos upon musical glasses.

   2017, Daniel Mark Epstein, The Loyal Son: The War in Ben Franklin's House, page 88

   Synonyms: glass harmonica

3. figurativelyAnything that produces a similarly pure continuous sound.

   Bobolink. For notes from the "glassichord" of fifteen bobolinks see Chapter III., near end.

   1897, William Sloane Kennedy, In Portia's Gardens, page 220

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   The moveless, still air acted as a glassichord on the waters, which rang under the shrill voice of the singer.

   1867, Ersilia: or, The ordeal, page 130

   Turning upon his perch , he brings to view his “glassichord," or shrilling organ, upon his back — a glass-like spot upon his wings just behind the thorax, or what might appear to be facetiously inclined as an exceedingly uncomfortable-looking collar.

   1887, William Hamilton Gibson, Happy Hunting-grounds: A Tribute to the Woods and Fields, page 119