noun: a small musical instrument consisting of a box with strings across the top. It is played using your fingers.
noun: a musical stringed instrument with strings stretch over a flat sounding box; it is laid flat and played with a plectrum and with fingers

Keely
"According to the report, he proved to the satisfaction of more than one member of the club that he has already discovered the means of calling out this force, and is able to partially control it. In their presence he caused a heavy sphere to rotate rapidly or slowly, according to the notes given by the instrument on which he played. The sphere was so isolated as to prove that it could not be acted on by electricity or in any other way than by the sound waves. He disintegrated water into what he calls "etheric vapor" by means of a tuning fork and a zither. The disintegration of only four drops of water produced a pressure of 27,000 pounds to the square inch, and three drops of the harmless liquid fired off a cannon with a tremendous roar." [Keely and His Discoveries]

"On this rude harmonious trumpet this magician (Keely) blows through a small window into the next room towards a common zither some ten feet distant, held upright on a table by a small standard composed of a group of metal tubes. The two musical instruments have been carefully attuned to each other (sympathetic vibration). Attached to the back of the zither is a common silk thread loosely hanging and extending some eight feet away, where it is tied to a movable framework of half-inch iron rods, supporting and bracing in position, on an isolated table of glass, a metal globe, fifteen inches in diameter, capable of turning freely in either direction, on its axis, which bears inside the globe certain resonant tubes and plates, the table standing at an angle of 45 degrees from the face of the zither. [Dashed Against The Rock]