Etymograph

English

timple

Timple comes from Spanish tiple ‘treble guitar, a small plucked stringed…’.

  1. Spanishc. 1500–presenttiple1‘treble guitar, a small plucked stringed instrument of the guitar family’
  2. Spanishc. 1500–presenttimple1
  3. Englishtodaytimple1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English timple

Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.

Lineage

  1. Spanishc. 1500–presenttipleWiktionary, English timple‘treble guitar, a small plucked stringed instrument of the guitar family’
  2. Spanishc. 1500–presenttimpleWiktionary, English timple
  3. EnglishtodaytimpleWiktionary, English timple

The story

Borrowed from Spanish timple, from tiple, of uncertain etymology.uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Spanish tiple

Today it means

noun A traditional musical instrument of the Canary Islands and Murcia, having four or more commonly five strings, and similar in size to a ukulele but with a distinctive semi-round back.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “timple”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Spanish tiple / timple

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