Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Cithara

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

CITH'ARA (κιθάρα, κίθαρις). A stringed instrument of very great antiquity, resembling in form the human chest and neck (Isidor. Orig. ii. 3. 22.), and so corresponding with our guitar, a term which comes to us through the Italian chitarra; the Roman c and Italian ch having the same sound as the greek κ. The illustration (Cithara/1.1) here introduced, from an ancient bas-relief preserved in the hospital of St. John in Lateran at Rome, agrees so closely with the description which Isidorus gives of the instrument, as to leave little doubt that it preserves the real form of the cithara, in the strict and original sense of that word; although it may have been sometimes applied by the Greek poets in a less special or determinate meaning. See also the two following words and illustrations (CITHARISTA, CITHARISTRIA).

• 
  Cithara/1.1