Kit
Kit may refer to:
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Places
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Personal name
Other uses
Pál Kitaibel
Pál Kitaibel (3 February 1757– 13 December 1817) was a Hungarian botanist and chemist.
He was born at Mattersburg and studied botany and chemistry at the University of Buda. In 1794 he became Professor and taught these subjects at Pest. As well as studying the flora and hydrography of Hungary, in 1789 he discovered the element tellurium, but later gave the credit to Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein (1740–1825) who had actually discovered it in 1782.
Together with Franz de Paula Adam von Waldstein (1759–1823), he wrote Descriptiones et icones plantarum rariorum Hungariae ("Descriptions and pictures of the rare plants of Hungary"; M. A. Schmidt, Vienna, three volumes, 1802–1812). In this work he made the first description of Nymphaea lotus f. thermalis.
He died in 1817 at Pest.
The genus Kitaibelia of mallows was named after him by Carl Ludwig von Willdenow.
Species named after him:
Kit violin
The kit violin, dancing master's kit, or kit, is a stringed instrument. It is essentially a very small violin, designed to fit in a pocket — hence its other common name, the pochette (French for small pocket). It was used by dance masters in royal courts and other places of nobility, as well as by street musicians up until around the 18th century. Occasionally, the rebec was used in the same way. Several are called for (as violini piccoli alla francese - small French violins) in Monteverdi's 1607 Orfeo.
History
The word "kit" probably arose from an abbreviation of the word "pocket" to "-cket" and subsequently "kit"; alternatively, it may be a corruption of “cittern” (Gr. κιθάρα).Trichet is said to have described the leather carrying case of the kit as a poche, hence, "The Pocket Violin". Similarly, Mersenne wrote that it was common practice among the kit violin's players (such as traveling minstrels or dance teachers) to carry the violin in a pocket. The term "kit" is believed to first have been used in the first quarter of the 16th century, in England where it was mentioned in Interlude of the Four Elements, c. 1517.
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