Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a
neck (either
fretted or unfretted) and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes.
The European
lute and the modern Near-Eastern
oud both descend from a common ancestor via diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a great variety of instrumental music from the early
Renaissance to the late
Baroque eras
The origins of the lute are obscure, and organologists disagree about the very definition of a lute. The highly influential organologist Curt Sachs distinguished between the "long-necked lute" (Langhalslaute) and the short-necked variety: both referred to chordophones with a neck as distinguished from harps and psalteries.