A hollow steel-strung acoustic or semi-acoustic guitar with a full body and a distinctive arched top, with a sound that is particularly suited to jazz, blues and rockabilly styles. It typically has 6 strings and a moveable adjustable bridge and 'f-holes' similar to members of the violin family.

The archtop guitar is often credited to Orville Gibson, whose innovative designs led to the formation of the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company in 1902. His 1898 patent for a mandolin, which was also applicable to guitars according to the specifications, was intended to enhance power and quality of tone by means of a violin-style arched top and back, each carved from a single piece of wood and thicker in the middle than at the sides. Many archtop guitars during the 1950s and 1960s were equally playable as either an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar, which proved popular.

The 1970s and 1980s were a low point of interest in archtops, with many rock and pop (and some jazz and blues) players switching to solid body guitars. However, their popularity has to some extent revived since the 1990s.