lithophone

plural lithophones

1. Any musical instrument in which sound is produced by percussion of a stone.

   Lithophones are the oldest of the bar idiophones. We have already mentioned the ten note neolithic lithophone from Vietnam, but such instruments have died out.

   1970, Musical instruments: handbook to the Museum's collection, Horniman Museum, →OCLC, page 25

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   A third line of evidence—the production of sound using the natural rock as lithophones—is, like the two just discussed, geographically widespread, covering all continents except perhaps Antarctica.

   2018, Bruno David, The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art

2. datedmedicineA device by which the presence of bladder stones can be audibly detected.

   Ogston of Aberdeen, has invented and advertised in the Lancet a new instrument which is termed a " lithophone," and is to enable surgeons to hear a stone in the bladder.

   1885, Edinburgh Medical Journal, volume 30, number 1, page 191

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   It is needless to dwell on the utility of the lithophone for finding vesical calculi and small fragments after lithotrity. The instrument in figured in Le Progrés Medica, 3 April, 1880.

   1880, Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, volume 26, page 126

   Mr James M'Kenzie Davidson, M.B., C.M., with the assistance of Processor Alex. Ogston of Aberdeen, has invented and advertised in the Lancet a new instrument which is termed a "lithophone," and is to enable surgeons to hear a stone in the bladder.

   1885 August, Edinburgh Medical Journal, volume 30, number 1, page 191

plural lithophones

1. alternativecountableuncountableAlternative form of lithopone.

   A sample of lithophone, one of the zinc sulphide whites examined by the author, had the following composition: […]

   1892, George Henry Hurst, Painters' Colours, Oils, and Varnishes: a Practical Manual, page 67

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   Orison B. Smith testified that he was familiar with lithophone; that it was known to trade as sulfid of zinc white and white sulphide of zinc; that it is zinc and barytes burnt together in a furnace, the barytes acting as a base for the zinc, which becomes sulphide of zinc; that the sulphide of zinc, commercially, would consist of a large portion of barytes and a large portion of sulphide of zinc and possibly a little oxide; that he recognized lithophone as one of the species of sulphides of zinc known to commerce.

   1901, Treasury Decisions, volume 3, page 34

   Lithophone (ZnS.BaSO₄) under the action of light did not respond as rapidly as expected. Lithophone is well known to turn grey or even black on exposure to intense light, and later this dark color may turn to pure white in the absence of light or even in subdued light.

   1915 September, Chemical Age, volume 22, page 118

   Lithophone, however, is not as well known a pigment and a full discussion of its properties and characteristics may prove of interest and profit. The discovery of lithophone is credited to Orr, an Englishman, in 1874.

   1918, Railway Engineering and Maintenance, volume 14, page 25

   The term pigment was originally used to denote inorganic materials which imparted colour to the paint such as white lead, titanium oxide, lithophone, zinc oxide and zinc sulphide for white paints, ultramarine for blue, red lead and iron oxides for red […]

   1969, ʼAdis ʼAbabā negd meker bét, Small-scale industries in Africa, →OCLC, page 73