sambuca

noun

1. (uncountable, usually)An Italian liqueur made from elderberries and flavoured with licorice, traditionally served with 3 coffee beans that represent health, wealth and fortune (or past, present and future).
2. (historical)An ancient form of triangular harp having a very sharp, shrill tone.

   “Cymbals, trumpets and organs (familiar Old Testament vocabulary) appear conventionally enough as cymballe, trwmpedau and organau, but the more obscure psaltria, trigona, and sambucae (psalteries, trigons and sambucae: three types of Greek harp) become psalteris, kornets, shalmes, [a] dulcimus in translation (Chapter Six, paragraph 7); cornets and shawns are, of course, wind instruments.”

3. (historical)An ancient type of ship-borne siege engine.

   “Marcellus had prepared, at great expense, machines called ſambucae, from their reſemblance to a muſical inſtrument of that name.[…]“Shall we perſiſt,” ſaid he to his workmen and engineers, “in making war with this Briareus of a geometrician, who treats my gallies and ſambucae ſo rudely? He infinitely exceeds the fabled giants with their hundred hands, in his perpetual and ſurpriſing diſcharges upon us.””

   “Whenever the sambucae approached these beams were swung round on their axis, and by means of a rope running through a pulley dropped the stones on the sambuca, the consequence being that not only was the engine smashes, but the ship and those on board were in the utmost peril.”

   “I’m not overly keen on the idea of setting to sea on ships with contraptions like the sambucae on board either, Crespo, but orders are orders.[…]There were fewer projectiles coming down here, because the enemy artillerymen were concentrating on the Romans directly below their positions. Some way off to his right, the sambuca on the craft that had come in at the same time as theirs had just been grabbed by another iron claw.”