sanxiann.

1839 Chinese Repository 8 43 The san heën. Threestringed guitar... The san heën is played as an accompaniment to the pepa, as its sounds are low and dull.

1848 S. W. Williams Middle Kingdom II. xvi. 169 The san hien, or three stringed guitar, resembles a rebeck in its contour.

1874 Jrnl. N.-China Branch Royal Asiatic Soc. 1873 8 115 The San-hsien is usually played as an accompaniment to the P'i-p'a, its sound being low, and dull, and deficient in character.

1917 Encycl. Sinica 388/2 Hsien tzû or San hsien is a three-stringed instrument with a small oval body covered above and below with snake-skin, and a neck about thirty inches long. There are no frets. It is played with a plectrum of jade.

1933 N. Waln House of Exile 204 An orchestra..played serpent-bellied san hsien.

1954 Folk Arts of New China 34 Before he came to Peking, the blind minstrel Han Chi-hsiang, as he frankly admitted, was some~what complacent about his technique on the san hsien (a Chinese three-stringed musical instrument).

1975 C. P. Mackerras Chinese Theatre in Mod. Times 22 The other principal plucked instruments are the yüeh-ch'in and the san-hsien, both of which function as secondary accompanying instruments in many dramatic styles... The name san-hsien means ‘three strings’... It produces a characteristic twanging sound.