trumpet
Americannoun
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Music.
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any of a family of brass wind instruments with a powerful, penetrating tone, consisting of a tube commonly curved once or twice around on itself and having a cup-shaped mouthpiece at one end and a flaring bell at the other.
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an organ stop having a tone resembling that of a trumpet.
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a trumpeter.
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something used as or resembling a trumpet, especially in sound.
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a sound like that of a trumpet.
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the loud shrill cry of an animal, especially an elephant.
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trumpets, any of several pitcher plants of the southeastern U.S.
verb (used without object)
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to blow a trumpet.
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to emit a loud, trumpetlike cry, as an elephant.
verb (used with object)
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to sound on a trumpet.
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to utter with a sound like that of a trumpet.
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to proclaim loudly or widely.
noun
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a valved brass instrument of brilliant tone consisting of a narrow tube of cylindrical bore ending in a flared bell, normally pitched in B flat. Range: two and a half octaves upwards from F sharp on the fourth line of the bass staff
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any instrument consisting of a valveless tube ending in a bell, esp a straight instrument used for fanfares, signals, etc
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a person who plays a trumpet in an orchestra
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a loud sound such as that of a trumpet, esp when made by an animal
the trumpet of the elephants
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an eight-foot reed stop on an organ
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something resembling a trumpet in shape, esp in having a flared bell
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short for ear trumpet
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to boast about oneself; brag
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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trumpetsimple
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trumpetssimple
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have trumpetedperfect
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has trumpetedperfect
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am trumpetingprogressive
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are trumpetingprogressive
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is trumpetingprogressive
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have been trumpetingperfect progressive
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has been trumpetingperfect progressive
Past
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trumpetedsimple
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had trumpetedperfect
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was trumpetingprogressive
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were trumpetingprogressive
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had been trumpetingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of trumpet
1300–50; Middle English trumpette, trompette < French, equivalent to trompe trump 2 + -ette -et
Explanation
A trumpet is a brass instrument that you play by blowing into its mouthpiece and pressing valves to form notes. If your older brother has trouble getting up in the morning, you can help him out by practicing your trumpet outside his bedroom door at six a.m. Trumpets fall under the category of brass instruments, along with tubas and saxophones. When you play a trumpet, you need to use something called embouchure, the proper shaping of your mouth and lips so your breath buzzes against the mouthpiece in just the right way. Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis were famous jazz trumpet players. As a verb, to trumpet is to announce something very loudly, as if you were playing it on a trumpet.
Vocabulary lists containing trumpet
Musical Instruments - Introductory
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Musical Instruments - Middle School
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Musical Instruments - High School
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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:
Korkejian sourced many of those sounds from instruments she first picked up as a child, returning to the trumpet — her second instrument after piano — and experimenting with tuba and valve trombone.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
Monty Norman's surf guitar riff and John Barry's sweeping orchestral scores spawned an entire genre of spy music – full of minor key suspense and piercing stabs of trumpet.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
What keeps you playing the trumpet after all these years?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2026
Dan Schlosberg’s seven-player arrangement of Barber’s technicolor orchestration, conducted by Mr. Ashworth, was clever but mostly loud with prominent trumpet and trombone, contributing to a musical performance that had just one gear: ferociously strident intensity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 18, 2026
In the other hand he seized the suitcase and the long trumpet thing and off he ran.
From "The BFG" by Roald Dahl
Not a day goes by that I don’t read a headline that trumpets the shortage of estrogen patches, which are used to treat the bothersome symptoms of perimenopause and menopause.
From MarketWatch ● May 12, 2026
Thunder sticks are so loud that they were banned at the World Baseball Classic finals, even as drums, trumpets and cowbells were permitted.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2026
Hundreds of protesters stood outside in subzero temperatures and made as much noise as possible—banging pots, blowing whistles, drumming on buckets, blowing trombones and trumpets.
From Slate ● Feb. 11, 2026
But I do believe — cue the trumpets and cherubs — there is nothing beyond the power of voters to fix.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2025
Plus, some parents grew angry when the Hitler Youth purposely disrupted Sunday services by playing their trumpets loudly outside the church.
From "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
While the tech has changed since then, the principles the court trumpeted today are evergreen.
From Slate ● Jul. 1, 2026
But the U.S. delegation boarded Air Force One on Friday afternoon with little else to show from a summit the president had trumpeted for weeks as an historic event.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2026
Authorities detained a person for questioning, and FBI Director Kash Patel trumpeted “substantial progress.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026
Organisers have each day trumpeted the large number of people packing into Melbourne Park.
From Barron's ● Jan. 22, 2026
Miracle of miracles, no one trumpeted out my name.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
But it wasn’t just Fox News trumpeting the study.
From Salon ● Apr. 13, 2026
But China's own statements have been circumspect, saying it backs the ceasefire but hardly trumpeting its own diplomacy.
From Barron's ● Apr. 10, 2026
Firms that had banner years would lay siege to hotel ballrooms, trumpeting their good fortune with rip-roaring excesses more suited to an Indian wedding.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 17, 2025
But this year I started receiving emails in late September trumpeting an imminent Santa Claus rally.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 11, 2025
In his wroth, his bellows reminded Jon of a mammoth trumpeting.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Definitions 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.
