qing
Pluralqings, qing
- 1A traditional Chinese percussion instrument consisting of a sounding stone that produces a clear, pitched tone when struck.
Like a xylophone bar, except it is a single thick slab of stone that rings when struck.
A single qing hung in the frame, ringing softly when the player tapped it with a mallet.
In the ancestral temple, the qing sounded to mark each phase of the ceremony.
Note
The name imitates the instrument's own ring. English takes it from the Pinyin spelling of Mandarin qìng, ultimately an echo of struck stone. Earlier writing uses the older romanization ching, as when Eastern Horizon reported in 1971 that 25 painted stone ching of the State of Chu had been unearthed in Chiangling County. The plural is qings, or unchanged qing as in that report.
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Origin
From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 磬 (qìng), which is ultimately onomatopoeic.