or MANICHORD, a musical instrument in form of a spinet.

It has 49 or 50 stops, and 70 strings, which bear on five bridges; the first whereof is the highest, the rest diminishing in proportion. Some of the strings are in unison, their number being greater than that of the stops. There are several little mortices for passing the jacks, armed with brafs-hooks, which stop and raise the chords instead of the feather used in virginals and spinets: but what distinguishes it most is, that the chords are covered with pieces of cloth, which render the sound sweeter, and deaden it so that it cannot be heard at any considerable distance: whence it comes to be particularly in use among the nuns, who learn to play, and are unwilling to disturb the silence of the dormitory.