Library / English Dictionary

HARP

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A small rectangular free-reed instrument having a row of free reeds set back in air holes and played by blowing into the desired hole

Synonyms:

harmonica; harp; mouth harp; mouth organ

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("harp" is a kind of...):

free-reed instrument (a wind instrument with a free reed)

Derivation:

harp (play the harp)

harpist (someone who plays the harp)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A chordophone that has a triangular frame consisting of a sounding board and a pillar and a curved neck; the strings stretched between the neck and the soundbox are plucked with the fingers

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("harp" is a kind of...):

chordophone (a stringed instrument of the group including harps, lutes, lyres, and zithers)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "harp"):

aeolian harp; aeolian lyre; wind harp (a harp having strings tuned in unison; they sound when wind passes over them)

lyre (a harp used by ancient Greeks for accompaniment)

Derivation:

harp (play the harp)

harpist (someone who plays the harp)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A pair of curved vertical supports for a lampshade

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("harp" is a kind of...):

support (any device that bears the weight of another thing)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Come back to

Example:

She is always harping on the same old things

Synonyms:

dwell; harp

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "harp" is one way to...):

ingeminate; iterate; reiterate; repeat; restate; retell (to say, state, or perform again)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s PP

Sense 2

Meaning:

Play the harp

Example:

She harped the Saint-Saens beautifully

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Hypernyms (to "harp" is one way to...):

play (perform music on (a musical instrument))

"Harp" entails doing...:

pick off; pluck; pull off; tweak (pull or pull out sharply)

Domain category:

music (musical activity (singing or whistling etc.))

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

harp (a small rectangular free-reed instrument having a row of free reeds set back in air holes and played by blowing into the desired hole)

harp (a chordophone that has a triangular frame consisting of a sounding board and a pillar and a curved neck; the strings stretched between the neck and the soundbox are plucked with the fingers)

harper (someone who plays the harp)

Credits

 Context examples: 

As Elinor was neither musical, nor affecting to be so, she made no scruple of turning her eyes from the grand pianoforte, whenever it suited her, and unrestrained even by the presence of a harp, and violoncello, would fix them at pleasure on any other object in the room.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Your musical knowledge alone would entitle you to name your own terms, have as many rooms as you like, and mix in the family as much as you chose;—that is—I do not know—if you knew the harp, you might do all that, I am very sure; but you sing as well as play;—yes, I really believe you might, even without the harp, stipulate for what you chose;—and you must and shall be delightfully, honourably and comfortably settled before the Campbells or I have any rest.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp; and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss Grantley's.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

The harp had not been used for many and many a day.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Now, Mr. Bertram, if you write to your brother, I entreat you to tell him that my harp is come: he heard so much of my misery about it.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I'll come, Teddy, rain or shine, and march before you, playing 'Hail the conquering hero comes' on a jew's-harp.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

A gilt harp, blotched with many stains and with two of its strings missing, was tucked under one of his arms, while with the other he scooped greedily at his platter.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I had read sea-romances in my time, wherein figured, as a matter of course, the lone woman in the midst of a shipload of men; but I learned, now, that I had never comprehended the deeper significance of such a situation—the thing the writers harped upon and exploited so thoroughly.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

That she was coming to apologize, and that they should have to spend the evening by themselves, was the first black idea; and Mary was quite ready to be affronted, when Louisa made all right by saying, that she only came on foot, to leave more room for the harp, which was bringing in the carriage.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Their outward garments were adorned with the figures of suns, moons, and stars; interwoven with those of fiddles, flutes, harps, trumpets, guitars, harpsichords, and many other instruments of music, unknown to us in Europe.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)