noun
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Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of musician
1350–1400; Middle English musicien < Middle French. See music, -ian
Explanation
Anyone who plays music can be called a musician. Whether you're playing the cello on stage at Carnegie Hall or playing the harmonica on a subway platform, you're a musician. While this word is most often used to mean a professional instrumentalist, it can also refer to someone who writes or sings music, and even your brother's friend who occasionally plays the drums in a Led Zeppelin cover band. Musician originally meant "one skilled in music," from the Latin musica, "the art of music and poetry," which has a Greek root, mousike, "art of the Muses."
Vocabulary lists containing musician
List 2
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -an
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He is not the first musician to raise concerns over ticket pricing.
From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2026
His brother, Manus, is also a noted musician and producer.
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2026
The musician missed a shot and his arrow passed through the fence and came close to striking a neighbor in her backyard as her husband stood nearby.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026
The 85-year-old musician, who put his longtime Nevada retreat on the market for $43 million earlier this year, took several steps to protect the dwelling and the surrounding forest and wildlife.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 19, 2026
The musician had a quick temper and his own ideas of how to do things.
From "Spooked!" by Gail Jarrow
Other organisations like Sofar Sounds work exclusively with grassroots musicians, putting on intimate pop-up gigs in cities across the globe.
From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2026
"All the musicians in Ireland will have nodded to him at some stage," he added.
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2026
So far, the musicians aren’t taking anything for granted and are trying to enjoy the in-between moments.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2026
Prior to Bruch, Scotland had long been a muse for German musicians.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
Yesterday, after Ms. Fender had announced the section leaders, she’d assigned the rest of us our chairs based on how good she thought we were as musicians.
From "Maybe He Just Likes You" by Barbara Dee
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
