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Mandolin vs Mandarin - What's the difference?

mandolin | mandarin |

As nouns the difference between mandolin and mandarin

is that mandolin is (music) a stringed instrument and a member of the lute family, having eight strings in four courses, frequently tuned as a violin they have either a bowl back or a flat back while mandarin is mandarin (person).

mandolin

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • (music) A stringed instrument and a member of the lute family, having eight strings in four courses, frequently tuned as a violin. They have either a bowl back or a flat back.
  • A kitchen tool used for slicing vegetables (usually spelled mandoline).
  • (military) An RAF World War II code name for patrols to attack enemy railway transport and other ground targets.

    • Derived terms

    * mandolinist

    Related terms

    * mandola, manjo, mandolin-banjo, banjo-mandolin, banjolin

    External links

    * * * (commonslite)

    mandarin

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) mandarim, mandarij, from (etyl) menteri, manteri, and its source, (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (historical) A high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire.
  • A pedantic or elitist bureaucrat.
  • (often, pejorative) A pedantic senior person of influence in academia or literary circles.
  • A mandarin duck.
  • (informal, British) A senior civil servant.
    • Derived terms
    * mandarinate * mandarinism * mandarinship

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Pertaining to or reminiscent of mandarins; deliberately superior or complex; esoteric, highbrow, obscurantist.
  • *1979 , , Smiley's People , Folio Society 2010, p. 58:
  • *:A mandarin impassivity had descended over Smiley's face. The earlier emotion was quite gone.
  • * 2007 , Marina Warner, ‘Doubly Damned’, London Review of Books 29:3, p. 26:
  • *:Though alert to riddles' strong roots in vernacular narrative, Cook's tastes are mandarin , and she gives a loving account of Wallace Stevens's meditations on the life of poetic images and simile […].

    • Etymology 2

    From (etyl) mandarine, feminine of mandarin, probably formed as Etymology 1, above, from the yellow colour of the mandarins' costume.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A mandarin orange; a small, sweet citrus fruit.
  • A mandarin orange tree, Citrus reticulata .
  • An orange colour.

    • External links

    * (wikipedia "mandarin")

    Anagrams

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