a musical percussion instrument that resembles a marimba and is played with mallets, but that has metal instead of wooden bars and has a set of electrically powered resonators for sustaining the tone or creating a vibrato
Also called: vibraphone
Derived forms
vibraharpist
noun
Word origin
[1925–30; ‹ L vibrā(re) to shake + harp]This word is first recorded in the period 1925–30. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: Nazi, distinctive feature, gimmick, runout, turnaround