dulcitone

English

Dulcitone, display at the Palace of Cortés, Cuernavaca, Mexico

Etymology

Coined by Thomas Machell, the instrument’s inventor, in 1888, from Latin dulcis (“sweet”) + tonus (“tone”).

Noun

dulcitone (plural dulcitones)

1. A keyboard instrument in which sound is produced by a range of tuning forks, which vibrate when struck by felt-covered hammers activated by the keyboard.
   • 1908, Eleventh Annual Report of the City Superintendent of Schools, page 521:

     It would be pleasing could I record the acquirement of dulcitones for these or the regular classes, especially the kindergartens—the dulcitone being the new instrument mentioned in my report of last year—but perhaps they will come in the near future.

   • 1917 August 3, Artillery and Trench Mortar Memories: 32nd Division, published 1932:

     A dulcitone had just arrived there on which I played, but I am very glad I didn’t close with our Colonel’s offer to buy one—the tone is so wretchedly thin, especially the bass, which has none at all.

   • 1920, F. W. Harvey, Comrades in Captivity: A Record of Life in Seven German Prison Camps:

     There was a dulcitone in the camp belonging to one of the prisoners, and it sounded very pretty accompanying the songs at the end of ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’.

   • 1922, Langa Langa [pseudonym; Harry Baldwin Hermon-Hodge], Up Against It in Nigeria, New York, N.Y.: E. P. Dutton and Company, page 202:

     Wood, the M.O., had a dulcitone, upon which he could perform in no mean fashion, when he felt sufficiently inspired to leave his long chair.

   • 1969, 100 Famous Australian Lives, page 299:

     He preferred, he said, bells, glockenspiels, dulcitones, and marimbas—anything that would whoop, tinkle, and glide with abandon.

   • 1981, Australian Journal of Music Education, page 5:

     Young people love such colourful, easy-to-play instruments as staff-bells, marimbas, dulcitones, etc.

Further reading

• Dulcitone on Wikipedia.Wikipedia