1. a stringed musical instrument similar to a guitar, popular in the 16th and 17th centuries
Usage: historical

Examples

• The musician played a beautiful melody on the cittern.
• Renaissance composers often wrote music for the cittern.
• The cittern was a popular instrument in Elizabethan England.
• She learned to play both lute and cittern.
• The museum displayed a well-preserved 16th-century cittern.
• Street musicians in Shakespeare’s time often carried citterns.