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a musical instrument, consisting of a flat sounding box with numerous strings stretched over it, that is placed on a horizontal surface and played with a plectrum and the fingertips.
Historical Examples

Your zither was left with us, and I’ve got the bassoon out of its case already.
The Jew And Other Stories Ivan Turgenev

There also in the evening Bavarian minstrels jodel, and play the zither.
Historic Oddities Sabine Baring-Gould

I have a beautiful Greek girl here, highly accomplished; can embroider, play the zither, sing in two languages.
Valeria William Henry Withrow

It sounds like a zither players sweetest songs, said the rider.
Christ Legends Selma Lagerlf

Drawing his zither from its case, he laid it on the table and allowed his fingers to stray across the strings.
A Crime of the Under-seas Guy Boothby

On an unlucky day one of the nieces took it into her head to study the zither.
Nightmare Tales H. P. Blavatsky

Then she called to him: ‘Why are you so cast down this evening, that you do not play on your zither?’
The Grey Fairy Book Various

Aspasia is the scale of the zither, without whom our strings would not sound.
Historical Miniatures August Strindberg

My ear, too, caught the twanging of a zither, which somehow reminded me of the afternoon in Kuprasso’s garden-house.
Greenmantle John Buchan

And so full was he of the idea of how to set about cleaving the log that he forgot even his zither.
The Grey Fairy Book Various

noun
a plucked musical instrument consisting of numerous strings stretched over a resonating box, a few of which may be stopped on a fretted fingerboard
n.

stringed musical instrument, 1850, from German Zither, from Old High German zitara, from Latin cithara, from Greek kithara “lute” (see guitar).