plectrum

plural plectrums · plural plectra · alternative plectron

1. entertainmentA small piece of plastic, metal, ivory, etc., for plucking the strings of a guitar, lyre, mandolin, etc.

   1 more example

   For sounds in winter nights, and often in winter days, I heard the forlorn but melodious note of a hooting owl indefinitely far; such a sound as the frozen earth would yield if struck with a suitable plectrum, the very lingua vernacula of Walden Wood, and quite familiar to me at last, though I never saw the bird while it was making it.

   1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Winter Animals”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 292

   Synonyms: guitar pick, pick, plectre

2. anatomyA projection of bone or other stiff tissue, such as the ridges in some insects' stridulatory organs.