Other forms: harps
A harp is the tall triangle of strings you pluck with both hands, so big that the player tips it back onto her shoulder to reach the far side. Gold frame, a forest of strings, seven pedals along the foot. It sits at the edge of the orchestra, and it is what painters hand to angels.
Harps come smaller too: the Irish or Celtic harp on the coins and on the Guinness label, held on the lap and played sitting down. Blues players call the harmonica a harp, so a harp solo on a blues record has no strings in it at all. Then there is the verb, which learners meet more than the instrument: to harp on about something is to keep dragging the same subject back long after everyone else has moved on, and it is never a compliment. A person who plays the harp is a harpist, and a harpy is something else entirely.
1nounharpA large stringed instrument with a triangular frame, played by plucking the strings with the fingers.
“She tilted the harp back against her shoulder and found the first string.”
2nounharmonicaA harmonica, in the language of blues and folk musicians.
“He pulled a harp out of his coat pocket and played over the top of the guitar.”
3verbkeepTo keep returning to the same subject until it irritates people. Used with on or on about.
“Dad harped on about the fuel bill for the whole drive home.”
harp is a musical instrument.
Harp is one of the old northern words. It comes down through Middle English harpe from Old English hearpe, out of Proto-Germanic *harpǭ, and its relatives are still standing right across the map: Dutch harp, German Harfe, Danish and Swedish harpa, Scots hairp. No Latin, no Greek in the line at all, because the instrument and its name were in northern Europe before either arrived.
Proto-Germanic
*harpǭ — harp
Proto-West Germanic
*harpā
Old English
hearpe — harp
Middle English
harpe
English, today
harp
From Middle English harpe, from Old English hearpe (“harp”), from Proto-West Germanic harpā, from Proto-Germanic harpǭ (“harp”). Cognate with Scots hairp (“harp”), West Frisian harpe, harp (“harp”), Low German Harp (“harp”), Dutch harp (“harp”), German Harfe (“harp”), Danish harpe (“harp”), Swedish harpa (“harp”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA