hautboy

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haut·boy

also haut·bois (hō′boi′, ō′boi′)

n. pl. haut·boys also haut·bois (-boiz′)

An oboe.

[French hautbois, from Old French : haut, high; see haughty + bois, wood (of Germanic origin).]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

hautboy

(ˈəʊbɔɪ)

1. (Plants) Also called: hautbois strawberry or haubois a strawberry, Fragaria moschata, of central Europe and Asia, with small round fruit

2. (Instruments) an archaic word for oboe

[C16: from French hautbois, from haut high + bois wood, of Germanic origin; see bush¹]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

o•boe

(ˈoʊ boʊ)

n.

a woodwind instrument having a slender conical, tubular body and a double-reed mouthpiece.

[1690–1700; < Italian < French hautbois=haut high + bois wood; compare hautboy]

o′bo•ist, n.

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Noun

hautboy - a slender double-reed instrument; a woodwind with a conical bore and a double-reed mouthpiece

hautbois, oboe

double reed, double-reed instrument - a woodwind that has a pair of joined reeds that vibrate together

basset oboe, heckelphone - an oboe pitched an octave below the ordinary oboe

musette pipe - a small simple oboe

oboe da caccia - an alto oboe; precursor of the English horn

oboe d'amore - an oboe pitched a minor third lower than the ordinary oboe; used to perform baroque music

shawm - a medieval oboe

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References in classic literature ?

In English it becomes hautboy, a wooden musical instrument of two-foot tone, I believe, played with a double reed, an oboe, in fact.

"'The case of a treble hautboy Was a mansion for him, a court.'

But--and mark you, the leap paralyzes one--crossing the Western Ocean, in New York City, hautboy, or ho-boy, becomes the name by which the night-scavenger is known.

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Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a distant hautboy. In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing.

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What hautboys and Zamora bagpipes we shall hear, what tabors, timbrels, and rebecks!

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The second course was two ducks trussed up in the form of fiddles; sausages and puddings resembling flutes and hautboys, and a breast of veal in the shape of a harp.

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As Fouquet was giving, or appearing to give, all his attention to the brilliant illuminations, the languishing music of the violins and hautboys, the sparkling sheaves of the artificial fires, which, inflaming the heavens with glowing reflections, marked behind the trees the dark profile of the donjon of Vincennes; as, we say, the superintendent was smiling on the ladies and the poets the fete was every whit as gay as usual; and Vatel, whose restless, even jealous look, earnestly consulted the aspect of Fouquet, did not appear dissatisfied with the welcome given to the ordering of the evening's entertainment.

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For, if the Words are not heard so as to be understood, there will be no great Difference between a human Voice and a Hautboy. This defect, tho' one of the greatest, is now-a-days more than common, to the greatest Disgrace of the Professors and the Profession.

Using Recitative to Teach Expressive Singing: An Old Idea Made New

(12) David Rutherford, Rutherford's compleat Collection of200 of the most celebrated Country Dances both Old and New which are now in Vogue, Performd at Court & all Public Afsemblies with y newest and best Figures and Directions to each tune, by Mr Rofe, for y Violin German Flute or Hautboy Voll 1st, London, n.

Identifying the origins of major Mitchell's quotations, references and footnotes in his "Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia ..."

The House of Life sequence is replete with terminology related to musical performance, including references to instruments (hautboy, harp, lute, monochord), performers (minstrel, daughters of the daybreak, bird, sirens), techniques (modulation, choral consonancy, wave, echoes, silence), and compositions (voluntary, air, tune, strain, song, ditties, dirges, vesper-song) in addition to musical titles ("Broken Music," "The Song-Throe," "The Monochord," "Death's Songsters").

Filling in the blanks: music and performance in Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Violin, Hautboy, German and Common Flutes, Bassoon, French Horn, Tenor, and Bass Violin, if desired." (15) The tenor violin was also among the group of instruments that Alexander Van Dienval continued to teach in an advertisement from 1762, (16) and a tenor violin was among the items in a collection of "Musick & Instruments, To be dispos'd of by a Gentleman lately arrived From LONDON." (17)

The Viola in America: two centuries of progress

Elton uses some originally French terms for her berries when she names them, and there is an aura of Frenchness about them: "'hautboy infinitely superior'" (389).