(Ital.), a rude musical instrument, formed of a number of sticks of hard wood of different lengths, generally attached to each other by strings at the ends, but so as to hang separate from one another when suspended by the top. It is played upon by striking the sticks with rods of cane or whalebone tipped with ivory balls. Mersenne, in his *Harmonia Universalis*, calls this instrument *lignum psalterium*.