musette

[ myoo-zet ]

/ myuˈzɛt /

noun

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.

Nearby words

museful, musefully, museological, museology, muses, musette, musette bag, museum, museum beetle, museum piece, museumgoer

Origin of musette

1350–1400; Middle English < Middle French, equivalent to muse bagpipe (derivative of muser to play the bagpipe < Latin mussāre to hum; see muse) + -ette- -ette

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for musette

Whilst walking along Marcel and Musette continued thus on the open Boulevard the comedy of reawakening love.
Bohemians of the Latin Quarter|Henry Murger
He discovered, in a shop, an old French musette (bagpipe), the chanter or melody-pipe of which was missing.
Springtime and Other Essays|Francis Darwin
Marcel was quarreling with Musette about a new bonnet which he had not given her.
Bohemians of the Latin Quarter|Henry Murger
Musette read a challenge in this sentence, and quickly replied, "And it will not perhaps be the last, eh?"
Bohemians of the Latin Quarter|Henry Murger

First off, I wouldn't answer the phone; but Musette stood by me with it in her hand and just made me.
Believe You Me!|Nina Wilcox Putnam

British Dictionary definitions for musette

musette

/ (mjuːˈzɛt, French myzɛt) /

noun

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

Word Origin for musette

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

musette

"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.