musette
[myoo-zet]
- Also called musette bag. a small leather or canvas bag with a shoulder strap, used for carrying personal belongings, food, etc., while hiking, marching, or the like.
- a French bagpipe of the 17th and early 18th centuries, with several chambers and drones, and with the wind supplied by a bellows rather than a blowpipe.
- a woodwind instrument similar to but smaller than a shawm.
- a short musical piece with a drone bass, often forming the middle section of a gavotte.
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Origin of musette
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for musette
Historical Examples
Pellisson was shut up with a Basque who used to play to him on the musette.
Legends of the BastilleFrantz Funck-Brentano
Is her milk as white and as good as the milk of your snowy pet, Musette?
Tell me, my child, what colour is your favourite heifer Musette?
When accompanied by a musette, the gavotte is always repeated.
Critical & Historical EssaysEdward MacDowell
And on his side, Marcel is hard and fast in love with Musette.
Bohemians of the Latin QuarterHenry Murger
musette
- a type of bagpipe with a bellows popular in France during the 17th and 18th centuries
- a dance, with a drone bass originally played by a musette
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Word Origin
C14: from Old French, diminutive of muse bagpipe
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for musette
n.
"small bagpipe," late 14c., from Old French musette "bagpipe" (13c.), from muser "to play the bagpipe, make music," from mus "mouth, muzzle," from Medieval Latin musum (see muzzle (n.)). As "a composition for a musette" from 1811, from French.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper