Obs. exc. Hist. Forms: 4 sitol, sital, 4–5 sytole, citole, 5 cytole, cithole, cythole, (sotile, gytolle), 5–6 sythol(l, (sytolphe), 9 (Hist.) citole, sytol. [a. OF. citole (-olle, sitole, ci-, cytholle, -oile, chistole), corresp. to Pr. and OSp. cito·la, MHG. zitôl(e; app. a deriv. of L. cithara (citara), with diminutive ending; but its history requires further investigation. (As a living word it was accented ci·tole; it has been made cito·le by modern writers after OF. or It.)
Derivation f. L. cista, wooden box, is out of the question; but the occasional F. mis-spelling cistole may possibly indicate a ‘popular etymology’ associating it with that word.]
A stringed instrument of music much mentioned in 13–15th c.; originally the same as the cithara, though the mediæval name may have been given to a special form: see quots. 1879–80.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., A. 91. Sytole stryng & gyternere.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Knt.’s T., 1101. A citole [1 MS. cythole] in hire right hond hadde sche.
1388. Wyclif, Bible 2 Sam. vi. 5. Harpis and sitols, and tympans [Vulg. citharis, et lyris, et tympanis; 16th c. vv. psalteries].
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 3435. With synging, & solas, and sitals amonge.
c. 1410. Sir Cleges, 102. Harpis, luttis, and getarnys, A sotile, & sawtre.
1460. Lybeaus Disc., 137. With sytole, sautrye yn same, Harpe, fydele and crouthe.
1480. Caxton, Ovid’s Met., XII. xvi. Harpes, sawteryes, rootes, gytolles [? sytolles], timbres, symphones.
1501. Douglas, Pal. Hon., I. xlii. Sytholl, psalttrie, and voices sweit as bell.
mod. 1823. trans. Sismondi’s Lit. Eur. (1846), I. v. 128. To play on the citole and mandore.
1871. Rossetti, Poems, Blessed Damozel, xxi. Angels meeting us shall sing To their citherns and citoles.
1879. Stainer, Music of Bible, 51. The old citole … seems only to have differed from the sawtry in that its strings were twanged with the finger-ends.
1879. Grove, Dict. Mus., Citole. This word, used by poets in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries … is supposed to mean the small box-shaped psaltery, sometimes depicted in MSS.
