Rebec

Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 8: Peasant to Eoumelia, p. 597

Rebec (Arabic rebab), an ancient musical instrument of the violin kind, of which the body, instead of consisting of two hemispherical enlargements, like other instruments of the same tribe, was narrow towards the neck, and gradually enlarged till it rounded off at the lower end. Milton, in his L'Allegro, characterises this instrument as the 'jocund rebec.'

Source scan(s): p. 0608