shawm

[ shawm ]

noun

an early musical woodwind instrument with a double reed: the forerunner of the modern oboe.

Origin of shawm

1300–50; Middle English schalme<Middle French chaume<Latin calamus stalk, reed <Greek kálamos reed; replacing Middle English schallemele<Middle French chalemel (see chalumeau)

Words Nearby shawm

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use shawm in a sentence

Cornemuse is a bagpipe; shalmye is a shawm, which was a wind-instrument, being derived from Lat.
Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 (of 7) | Geoffrey Chaucer
A figure is given (Galpin, p. 159) of a goat playing on a shawm from a carving of the twelfth century at Canterbury.
Springtime and Other Essays | Francis Darwin
The name is believed to be derived from calamaula, a reed-pipe, which was corrupted to chalem-elle and then to shawm.
Springtime and Other Essays | Francis Darwin
The shawm rang out yearningly beneath the pale expanse of an unsympathetic heaven.
The Road to the Open | Arthur Schnitzler
The shawm was silent, the herdsman bent questioningly over the wall and Kurwenal made answer.
The Road to the Open | Arthur Schnitzler

British Dictionary definitions for shawm

shawm

/ (ʃɔːm) /

noun

music a medieval form of the oboe with a conical bore and flaring bell, blown through a double reed

Origin of shawm

C14 shalmye, from Old French chalemie, ultimately from Latin calamus a reed, from Greek kalamos

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

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