Definition of "oud" []

• A musical instrument of northern Africa and southwest Asia resembling a lute. (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.

• "In the second century B.C. a little circle appeared in Greek astronomical texts as a place holder, most probably an abbreviation of the Greek word oudén (“not one,” “nothing”)."
• "The oud is a stringed Arab instrument that, after it was brought to Andalusian Spain in the eighth century, spawned the European lute, guitar and mandolin."
• "And the oud was a ticket into the school, he says."