What does "harmonica" mean?

A musical wind instrument with a series of holes for the player to blow into, each hole producing a different note.

What is a synonym for "harmonica"?

Common synonyms include: mouth harp, mouth organ, french harp, french harp, gob iron, gob iron.

How do you pronounce "harmonica"?

Pronounced //ˌhɑɹˈmɑ.nɪ.kə//.

Harmonica

//ˌhɑɹˈmɑ.nɪ.kə// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A musical wind instrument with a series of holes for the player to blow into, each hole producing a different note.
2
a small rectangular free-reed instrument having a row of free reeds set back in air holes and played by blowing into the desired hole wordnet
3
A musical instrument, consisting of a series of hemispherical glasses which, by touching the edges with the dampened finger, give forth the tones.
4
A toy instrument of strips of glass or metal hung on two tapes, and struck with hammers.

Synonyms

All synonyms

mouth harp mouth organ french harp french harp gob iron gob iron

Example

More examples

"Is the harmonica a present from his father?"

Etymology

From armonica. Coined by American polymath and statesman Benjamin Franklin to refer to his glass harmonica, an instrument that predated the small wind instrument by several decades. Doublet of harmonic; compare Latin harmonicus.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.