Hurdy-gurdy Hungarian lowlands, but was the normal term for the instrument on Csepel island directly south of Budapest. The equivalent names "ninera" and "niněra" are used in Slovakia and the Czech Republic respectively. In Russian and Ukrainian the instrument is called "wheel lyre" ("колёсная лира", "колісна ліра"). In Poland it is called "cranked lyre" (lira korbowa). "Leier", "lant", and related terms today are generally used to refer to members of the lute or lyre family, but historically had a broader range of meaning and were used for many types of stringed instruments. In her overview of the instrument's history, Palmer recorded
Musette de cour G. The qualification "de cour" refers to the instrument's connection with the French court and aristocracy of the early seventeenth century. "Exotic" - in the sense of "imported" or "out of place" - elements were fashionable, resulting in the appearance of traditional instruments such as bagpipe, hurdy-gurdy and galoubet in compositions for professionals and amateurs alike. The musette may well have benefited from being a bellows-blown instrument, too; it was generally considered unseemly for women to play any mouth-blown instrument. Borjon de Scellery, however, does explicitly identify grimacing and pulling faces as a habit of ill-trained musette-players. At the height