or MANICHORD, a musical instrument in the form of a spinet, but now out of use.

It has forty-nine or fifty stops, and seventy strings, which bear on five bridges, the first of which is the highest, while the rest diminish in proportion. Some of the strings are in unison, their number being greater than that of the stops. There are several little mortises for passing the jacks, armed with brass-hocks, 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; and hence it is particularly in use among nuns, who learn to play, and yet are unwilling to disturb the silence of the dormitory.