Lute

Lute, plucked string instrument with a pear-shaped body and a fretted neck, related to the guitar. It was most popular in Europe between 1400 and 1700. Instruments of the lute type date at least from 2000 B.C. in Mesopotamia. The direct ancestor of the European lute of the Renaissance was an Arabian instrument, from which it gets its name (Arabic: al-oud, the wood); the Middle Eastern lute is still called an oud.