Definition of "plectrum" []

• A small thin piece of metal, plastic, bone, or similar material, used to pluck the strings of certain instruments, such as the guitar or 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.

• "The ants have two segments of their abdomen, that's the last section of their bodies, that they rub together and one of these sections has a whole series of grooves on them and the other half has something that we call the plectrum, that is a bit like the plectrum of a guitar except it itself has several grooves, and when they rub these two surfaces together it produces sort of chirruping type noises."
• "Imagine your plectrum is a "ping-pong ball" (drom the first) and it just goes up and down - without changing speed!"
• "Another interesting feature on offer is a plectrum, which is an extra input device besides the alphanumeric keypad and pen stylus."