Meaning

noun an ancient stringed instrument similar to the lyre or zither but having a trapezoidal sounding board under the strings

originA learned alteration of Middle English sauterie, sautrie (rarely psautry), from Old French psalterie, from Latin psaltērium, from Ancient Greek ψαλτήριον (psaltḗrion, “stringed instrument, psaltery, harp”), from ψάλλω (psállō, “to touch sharply, to pluck, to pull, to twitch” and in the case of the strings of musical instruments, “to play a stringed instrument with the fingers, and not with the…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0