Definition of "mbira" [mbira]

• An African musical instrument consisting of a hollow gourd or wooden resonator and a number of usually metal strips that vibrate when plucked. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "This year there was marimba, mbira which is a type of traditional thumb piano, pop singing, classical singing, African drums, dance and instrumental."
• "It sits beside a thumb piano, or mbira, I received in the Kalahari."
• "Yet on Mr. Bona's windowsill sits a Grammy Award for guitarist Pat Metheny's 2002 album "Speaking of Now," on which Mr. Bona sang and played percussion; and beside it is a Les Victoires du Jazz, the French equivalent of a Grammy, for his 2006 "Tiki," on which he played five different instruments in addition to bass—from guitar and keyboards to the mbira, a thumb-piano common in many parts of Africa."