Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Plectrum

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

PLECTRUM (πλῆκτρον). Properly a Greek word, which, in its primitive sense, means a thing that is used to strike with (from πλήσσω, to strike); whence in both languages it is specially used to designate a short stick or quill with which the chords of a stringed instrument were struck, by inserting the end between the strings, or running it over them, when required. (Cic. N. D. ii. 59.) The instrument itself is shown on the left side of the illustration (Plectrum/1.1), from a Pompeian painting; and the manner of using it, by the figure annexed, from an ancient Roman fresco preserved in the Vatican, who twangs the strings of a lyre with the fingers of her left hand, and strikes them with a plectrum in her right.

2. Poetically applied to the handle (ansa), or to the tiller (clavus) of a rudder. Sil. Ital. xiv. 402. Ib. 548. See GUBERNACULUM.

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  Plectrum/1.1