armonica

Meanings

1. A musical instrument made of blown-glass bowls mounted on a spindle turned originally by a foot pedal, and played with wetted fingers, producing an ethereal sound. Technically, it is a crystallophone.

Etymology

Coined by Benjamin Franklin, its inventor; built on Italian armonia (“harmony”). Glass harmonica is a corruption of Franklin's original word, a back-formation influenced by harmonica (a reed instrument invented sixty years later).