| HARP | Instrument played by plucking the strings |
| PIZZICATO | Played by plucking the strings (9) |
| SHAMISEN | Japanese stringed instrument played by plucking |
| LYRE | Instrument played by plucking |
| PSALTERY | Ancient zither-like musical instrument, played by plucking (8) |
| LUTE | Guitar-like instrument played by plucking |
| HARPS | Talks repeatedly and tediously about / large upright roughly triangular musical instruments played by plucking with the fingers |
| JEWSHARP | Small lyre-shaped instrument placed between the teeth and played by plucking a metal reed (4,4) |
| HARPSICHORD | Keyboard instrument in which strings are set in vibration by plucking. It was one of the most important keyboard instruments in European music from the 16th through the first half of the 18th century. |
| ANCHER | Danish artist who painted Plucking The Christmas Goose (6) |
| TWANG | Strong reverberating sound made by plucking a string on a musical instrument (5) |
| DOUBLINGDOWN | Intensifying effort by plucking 100% more ducks? (8,4) |
| DULCIMER | A version of the psaltery in which the strings are beaten with small hammers rather than plucked. Versions include the Alpine hackbrett, the Hungarian cimbalom, the Romanian Eambal, the Greek santou |
| COLLEGNO | Musical direction to play the strings of an instrument by striking them with the back of the bow; Italian, 'with the wood' (3,5) |
| CAPO | Small movable bar fitted across the fingerboard of a fretted instrument to change the pitch of all the strings; Italian, 'head stop' (4) |
| CHORDS | Music provided by the strings for the audience (6) |
| HURDYGURDY | Medieval instrument shaped like a viol in which a rosined wheel rotated by a handle sounds the strings (5-5) |
| LEGNO | Col -, meaning "with the wood", a term by which a violinist understands they must strike the strings with their bow's stick, rather than with its hair (5) |
| SPICCATO | Technique in which the bow bounces lightly on the strings of an instrument (8) |
| STRUM | Sweep the thumb across the strings of a guitar (5) |
