flute

American  

[floot] / flut /

noun

• flutes
  plural

1. a musical wind instrument consisting of a tube with a series of fingerholes or keys, in which the wind is directed against a sharp edge, either directly, as in the modern transverse flute, or through a flue, as in the recorder.

2. an organ stop with wide flue pipes, having a flutelike tone.

3. Architecture, Furniture. a channel, groove, or furrow, as on the shaft of a column.

4. any groove or furrow, as in a ruffle of cloth or on a piecrust.

5. one of the helical grooves of a twist drill.

6. a slender, footed wineglass of the 17th century, having a tall, conical bowl.

7. a similar stemmed glass, used especially for champagne.

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verb (used without object)

• flutes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• fluted,
  past participle,  past
• fluting
  present participle

1. to produce flutelike sounds.

2. to play on a flute.

3. (of a metal strip or sheet) to kink or break in bending.

verb (used with object)

• flutes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• fluted,
  past participle,  past
• fluting
  present participle

1. to utter in flutelike tones.

2. to form longitudinal flutes or furrows in.

   to flute a piecrust.

flute British  

/ fluːt /

noun

1. a wind instrument consisting of an open cylindrical tube of wood or metal having holes in the side stopped either by the fingers or by pads controlled by keys. The breath is directed across a mouth hole cut in the side, causing the air in the tube to vibrate. Range: about three octaves upwards from middle C

2. any pipe blown directly on the principle of a flue pipe, either by means of a mouth hole or through a fipple

3. architect a rounded shallow concave groove on the shaft of a column, pilaster, etc

4. a groove or furrow in cloth, etc

5. a tall narrow wineglass

6. anything shaped like a flute

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verb

1. to produce or utter (sounds) in the manner or tone of a flute

2. (tr) to make grooves or furrows in

flute Cultural  

1. A high-pitched woodwind, held horizontally by the player and played by blowing across a hole.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• flutelike
  adjective
• fluty
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• flutes
  plural

Participles

• fluting
  present
• fluted
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• flute
  simple
• flutes
  simple
• have fluted
  perfect
• has fluted
  perfect
• am fluting
  progressive
• are fluting
  progressive
• is fluting
  progressive
• have been fluting
  perfect progressive
• has been fluting
  perfect progressive

Past

• fluted
  simple
• had fluted
  perfect
• was fluting
  progressive
• were fluting
  progressive
• had been fluting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will flute
  simple
• will have fluted
  perfect
• will be fluting
  progressive
• will have been fluting
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of flute

1350–1400; Middle English floute < Middle French flaüte, flahute, fleüte < Old Provençal flaüt (perhaps alteration of flaujol, flauja ) < Vulgar Latin *flabeolum. See flageolet, lute ¹

Explanation

A flute is a thin woodwind instrument: you blow into it and put your fingers over the holes to make music. There are many types of instruments, such as percussion, brass, and woodwind. One of the most popular woodwind instruments is the flute, which is thin and makes high-pitched sounds. The flute looks like a thin tube or pipe with a hole on each end and holes on the body: your fingers go up and down over the holes and you blow into the flute to make music. The word flute can also mean a groove in a column; fluted columns are common in classical Greek architecture.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

flute flutes fluted fluting

Near Darkness lurks a table laden with sugar-crusted fruit and an elaborately stemmed flute holding what looks like champagne.

From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2026

One woman whips out a flute to play a song from KPop Demon Hunters.

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026

“I think it’s tragic,” said John Ingalls, 82, a flute maker who rented one of the dwellings before the city booted him from the land it now owns.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026

Or if you ever were a young girl who wanted to pick the drums when it came time to choose an instrument for band, and were instead encouraged to play something like the flute.

From Salon ● Apr. 28, 2026

His voice was like the sound of a badly made flute, and sibilant with his Babylonian accent.

From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

As Sunday night turned into Monday morning, and the strains of fiddles and flutes drifted through the city streets, people hailed the success of Belfast's first ever All-Ireland Fleadh.

From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026

But it also endeavored to sound different from previous fantasy media, replacing twee flutes with composer Ramin Djawadi’s deep strings, rhythmic drumming and a theme song that sought to inspire its audience to battle.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 16, 2026

As passengers sipped flutes of Champagne for hours on the triple-decker yacht, they played games of “Guess Who?” customized with the faces of AI legends.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 20, 2025

"We served Lambrini in our little flutes but we only really had regulars turn up," she said.

From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2025

Above the hiss of shower heads and the slap of feet on tiles, a high, thin tinkling reached my ears, a sound almost like the tapping of champagne flutes before a toast.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

On a recent evening, from a seat at the restaurant’s fluted blonde-wood bar, I watched as a blaze of honeyed light poured through a wall of windows overlooking sloping vineyards and the Appalachian foothills.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026

Custom kitchens designed by Christopher Peacock are encased in wood and fluted glass cabinetry with 2-inch-thick Calacatta marble on the kitchen islands.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 30, 2026

The building’s fluted Corinthian columns are right at home in neoclassical Washington, but they aren’t a match with the rest of the White House, with its simpler, smooth columns and Ionic capitals.

From Slate ● Aug. 5, 2025

The tiara has single, rose-cut and brilliant-cut diamonds and three fluted turquoise plumes set with diamond stems.

From BBC ● Jun. 5, 2025

The glossy pages of succeeding months blossom around it: landscapes of fluted mountains for 1964; a curious collection of Irish setters and pugs in 1969; twelve varieties of jasmine for each month of 1973.

From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García

A couple of employees are in the music business, which helps explain the aural entertainment; dinner tastes better with Herbie Mann fluting through “Muscle Shoals Nitty Gritty.”

From Washington Post ● Aug. 26, 2022

For Honoré, personally, parietal art includes paintings and engravings made on rock, but would exclude markings like finger fluting or the Quesang prints, and some other archaeologists hold the same view.

From Scientific American ● Sep. 21, 2021

Mirianashvili opted for a standard drinking glass, the kind with fluting at the base and a wide band near the rim.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 22, 2019

Grant based her character on her own mother and aunt, ladies with high, fluting voices and a “wonderful, ridiculous part to them.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2017

There was not a piece of armour proofed in Europe but what Unde Dap had a theory about it He was furious with the new Gothic style, with its ridges and scallop-patterns and fluting.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White

Related Words

• blare
• hiss