Plucked string instrument in the context of "Banjo"

The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with some exceptions) and typically has six or twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A guitar pick may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant hollow chamber on the guitar, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.

The guitar is classified as a chordophone, meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood, with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States, but nylon and steel strings became mainstream only following World War II. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, and the five-course baroque guitar, all of which contributed to the development of the modern six-string instrument.

A bandura (Ukrainian: бандура [bɐnˈdurɐ] ) is a Ukrainian plucked-string folk-instrument. It combines elements of the zither and lute and, up until the 1940s, was also often called a kobza. Early instruments (c. 1700) had 5 to 12 strings and resembled lutes. In the 20th century, the number of strings increased initially to 31 strings (1926), then to 56 strings – 68 strings on modern "concert" instruments (1954).

Musicians who play the bandura are referred to as bandurists. In the 19th and early 20th centuries traditional bandura players, often blind, were called kobzars. It is suggested that the instrument developed as a hybrid of gusli (Eastern-European psaltery) and kobza (Eastern-European lute). Some also consider the kobza as a type or an instrument resembling the bandura. The term bandura occurs in Polish chronicles from 1441. The hybridization, however, occurred in the late-18th or early-19th centuries.

The pipa (Chinese: 琵琶; pinyin: pípá; Wade–Giles: p'i-p'a) is a traditional Chinese musical instrument belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31. Another Chinese four-string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa. The pear-shaped instrument may have existed in China as early as the Han dynasty, and although historically the term pipa was once used to refer to a variety of plucked chordophones, its usage since the Song dynasty refers exclusively to the pear-shaped instrument.

The pipa is one of the most popular Chinese instruments and has been played for almost two thousand years in China. Several related instruments are derived from the pipa, including the Japanese biwa and Korean bipa in East Asia, and the Vietnamese đàn tỳ bà in Southeast Asia. The Korean instrument is the only one of the three that is no longer widely used.

The bağlama or saz is a family of plucked string instruments and long-necked lutes used in Asia, Central-Asia, Caucasus, Anatolia, Levant, Thrace, Balkans and Europe. It is commonly used in Iranian, Armenian, Azerbaijani and Turkish Folk Music. It is a common instrument among Turkic people and a notable instrument of traditional folk artists like ashiks and ozans. It is both used as a solo instrument to play songs and to accompany türkü, traditional folk songs.

The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck that houses the second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box with a flat top, typically with one or three sound holes decorated with rosettes. As with the lute, the player plucks or strums the strings with the right hand while "fretting" (pressing down) the strings with the left hand.

The theorbo is related to the liuto attiorbato, the French théorbe des pièces, the archlute, the German baroque lute, and the angélique (or angelica). A theorbo differs from a regular lute in its re-entrant tuning in which the first two strings are tuned an octave lower. The theorbo was used during the Baroque music era (1600–1750) to play basso continuo accompaniment parts (as part of the basso continuo group, which often included harpsichord, pipe organ and bass instruments), and also as a solo instrument. It has a range similar to that of cello.

A bandurist (Ukrainian: бандури́ст, romanized: banduryst) is a person who plays the Ruthenian plucked string instrument known as the bandura.

A mandolin (Italian: mandolino, pronounced [mandoˈliːno]; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of eight strings. A variety of string types are used, with steel strings being the most common and usually the least expensive. The courses are typically tuned in an interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin (G3, D4, A4, E5). Also, like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.

There are many styles of mandolin, but the three most common types are the Neapolitan or round-backed mandolin, the archtop mandolin and the flat-backed mandolin. The round-backed version has a deep bottom, constructed of strips of wood, glued together into a bowl. The archtop, also known as the carved-top mandolin, has an arched top and a shallower, arched back both carved out of wood. The flat-backed mandolin uses thin sheets of wood for the body, braced on the inside for strength in a similar manner to a guitar. Each style of instrument has its own sound quality and is associated with particular styles of music. Neapolitan mandolins feature prominently in European classical music and in traditional music like the Andean music of Peru. Archtop instruments are common in American folk music and bluegrass music. Flat-backed instruments are commonly used in Irish, British, and Brazilian folk music, and Mexican estudiantinas.

The biwa (Japanese: 琵琶) is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. The biwa is a plucked string instrument that first gained popularity in China before spreading throughout East Asia, eventually reaching Japan sometime during the Nara period (710–794).

Typically 60 centimetres (24 in) to 106 centimetres (42 in) in length, the instrument is constructed of a water drop–shaped body with a short neck, typically with four (though sometimes five) strings.