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Glite Dictionary
steel guitar

steel guitar

3 4.9
A musical instrument with metal strings played by sliding a steel bar to make a smooth singing sound
  • noun
  • /stiːl ɡɪˈtɑːr/
translation icon : guitarra de acero
  • He played his steel guitar smoothly, producing the beautiful glissando effect that the audience loved.
  • pedal steel guitar
  • play steel guitar
  • steel guitar player

You know he's one of the greatest pedal steel guitar players in the universe.

Examples

  • She's moving to the sound of Tom's click-track, to the rhythmic slide of Bone's bass, to the sad notes of pedal steel guitar and piano lifting and falling.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • And the sound that Jerry Douglass gets out of that steel guitar just blows me away.

    Blog text (12)

  • Don Helms plays steel guitar.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • We used to bring the steel guitar, the bass, and the ukulele.

    Academic text (2008)

  • You know he's one of the greatest pedal steel guitar players in the universe.

    Theo Von

  • We didn't have a fiddle or a steel guitar or a honky-tonk piano player.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The steel guitar intros and Hank leans over the mic.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • The steel guitar version of "I Can't Help It" continues as Hank and Billie Jean play catch on the dirt road outside her mother's house.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • Pee Wee's steel guitar ripples through the cigarette haze and buzzes around Sailor's head.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • Fans, friends and family gave the boy from Mount Olive the state's largest send-off ever, accompanied by the mournful sounds of his buddies' steel guitars and weeping fiddles.

    I Saw the Light (2016)

Synonyms

guitar
vssteel guitar
∞ 1.0

A musical instrument with six strings that you play by strumming or plucking

is played by sliding a metal bar to create glissando rather than strumming or plucking
Hawaiian guitar
vssteel guitar
1 5.8

A guitar with steel strings that you play using a metal bar to make smooth sliding notes

is played by sliding a bar over strings to produce a smooth pitch glide

Surface Forms

steel guitar singular
steel guitars plural

Morphology

steel + guitar

The compound is compositionally clear: a B1 learner who knows 'steel' and 'guitar' will understand this as a type or variant of guitar associated with steel (e.g., made of or using steel strings). Material+object compounds are cross-linguistically common and follow a transparent composition pattern, so the basic meaning is immediately inferable even if specific playing technique is not.

Etymology

The noun steel guitar comes from the steel bar players use on a guitar to 'slide' over the strings. This 'sliding' makes a long, singing sound often heard in Hawaiian and country music, so the name links the metal 'steel' to the instrument's special sound.