sam·i·sen

(săm′ĭ-sĕn′)

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

samisen

(ˈsæmɪˌsɛn)

(Instruments) a variant of shamisen

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

sam•i•sen

(ˈsæm əˌsɛn)

n.

a guitarlike Japanese musical instrument having an extremely long neck and three strings.

[1610–20; < Japanese « Chinese sānxia three-string banjo]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

samisen - a Japanese stringed instrument resembling a banjo with a long neck and three strings and a fretted fingerboard and a rectangular soundbox; played with a plectrum

shamisen

stringed instrument - a musical instrument in which taut strings provide the source of sound

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Finally, just as we had engaged a Japanese orchestra, and as the first strains of the samisens and taikos were rising, through the paper-walls came a wild howl from the street.

View in context

Samisen Asian Cuisine is the latest edition to the Samisen family which started in Coral Bay, run by brothers Marios and Loukas Louka.

Restaurant review: Samisen Asian Cuisine, Paphos

Participants observed clients' serious facial expressions during an activity, such as playing the samisen (a traditional Japanese musical instrument), cooking, and sewing.

A Qualitative Study to Explore Ways to Observe Results of Engaging Activities in Clients with Dementia

Hamlet in the Rented World opens with a black screen and sounds of preparation, plus some strummed Kabuki samisen music.

Jack's last tapes: J. Hoberman on Jack Smith's Hamlet in the Rented World

Therefore, MEXT has designated individual actors (including leading role actors, female role actors, supporting role actors) and singers as well as the group consisting of the highly-skilled performers (including more than 180 actors, samisen (three-stringed musical instrument) players, drummers and narrators) as Holders of the Important Intangible Cultural Property.

Japan's law for protection of cultural properties and the 2011 great earthquake

For example, as Good King Wenceslas is played on a samisen with Bunraku-like puppets performing the parts of the children, the emotional values associated with these cultural values are radically altered.

Memory's dramas, modernity's ghosts: Thornton Wilder, Japanese Theater, and Paula Vogel's The Long Christmas Ride Home

As an exchange student in Japan during high school, Dalby developed proficiency in the Japanese language and the samisen [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], the stringed instrument played by geisha and associated with them since the Edo period.

Liza Dalby's Geisha: the view twenty-five years later

Bonze (1552), cangue (1727), cash (2) (1598), China (1555), Chinese (1577), chinesery (1890), Chinglish (1957), compound (1679), Dobsonian (1980), Hun (900), joss (1711), junk (1555), Manchu (1697), Manchurian (1706), mandarin (1589), miaow (1634), myriarch (1623), ombres chinoises (1779), pavillon chinois (1876), Pere David's Deer (1898), phad thai (1978), piastre (1592), prefect (1853), prefecture (1855), Ryukyu (1808), samisen (1616), shaman (1698), Sharawaggi (1685), shogun (1615), Shorin ryu (1974), silk (c.888), Symbionese (1973), transitional (1945), Turfanian (1939), Turk (13..), Wade-Giles (1943), Yarkand (1875).

Chinese loanwords in the OED

The performance will be accompanied by samisen music, composed and performed by Yumiko Tanaka.

LEAD: Big Apple is turning Japanese this fall: Japan Society