Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, also git, git flip, gitter (box)) a guitar.

1933		Metronome Aug. 16: Eddie was playing the kind of banjo I wanted, but I got him to learn that ‘gitter box’.
1946		M. Berger ‘Some Excesses of Sl. Compilers’ in AS XXI:3 Oct. 196: Compilers of jazz slang (including a contributor to American Speech) tell us that musicians say [...] gitter or git box for guitar.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 169: I got a soft spot for any guy who’ll go out and meet Judgement Day [...] with a battered old git-box and as much hay as he can carry.
1948		Down Beat 19 May 14: The final chorus is git and block chords and knocked-out a that.
1953		Randolph & Wilson Down in the Holler 247: git-flip: n. A humorous name for the guitar.
1961		R.A. Norton Through Beatnik Eyeballs 24: About this time I bought me a git-box and got to playing some real gutbucket.
1974		in DARE.
1998		Syracuse New Times 🌐 Doyle will strap on the old git-box when he rejoins Kim Lembo & Blue Heat when that band heads south in March for a tour of Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida.
2002		Pop Matters 🌐 He can play that git-box just like Chuck Berry, or the wannabe ‘look at me, I helped water down swing music and make it kool for kidz’ Brian Setzer.

2. (US black) a juke box.

1958

Hughes & Bontemps Book of Negro Folklore 484: git-box : A juke box, also piccolo. Put a dime in the git-box and play a side.