French horn

American  

noun

1. a musical brass wind instrument with a long, coiled tube having a conical bore and a flaring bell.

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French horn British  

noun

1. music a valved brass instrument with a funnel-shaped mouthpiece and a tube of conical bore coiled into a spiral. It is a transposing instrument in F. Range: about three and a half octaves upwards from B on the second leger line below the bass staff See horn

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French horn Cultural  

1. A mellow-sounding brass instrument, pitched lower than a trumpet and higher than a tuba.

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Etymology

Origin of French horn

First recorded in 1735–45

Compare meaning

How does french-horn compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• English horn vs. French horn
• mellophone vs. French horn

Example Sentences

Working his acoustic guitar with a French horn accompaniment — French horns! — he dares us to balance our relentless socioeconomic drive with our deep need to hang out, to while away the hours.

From Salon • Mar. 6, 2026

Loris Amiga, French horn, agreed: “We will stand firm for as long as it takes.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 19, 2026

He played the French horn to get a college scholarship, but found he didn’t want to play in orchestras for the rest of his life.

From MarketWatch • Feb. 9, 2026

It was a summer day in 2020, a peak of the coronavirus pandemic, and Mr. Milando, a French horn player, had been driving through a locked-down, emptied-out Times Square.

From New York Times • Mar. 12, 2024

Julie Landsman, who plays principal French horn for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, says that she’s found herself distracted by the position of someone’s mouth.

From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell