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bassoon

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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two bassoons

Etymology

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Borrowed from French basson.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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bassoon (plural bassoons)

  1. A musical instrument in the woodwind family, having a double reed and playing in the tenor and bass ranges.
    Synonym: (dated) fagotto
    • 1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
      Higher and higher every day, / Till over the mast at noon— / The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, / For he heard the loud bassoon.
    • 1834, Arnold Merrick, transl., Methods of Harmony, Figured Base, and Composition, translation of original by Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, page 303:
      The most convenient and natural order is, perhaps, the following: the upper staff may have the flute-part, because it has the highest notes, and, therefore, requires most room above the staff; then follow the parts for the hautboys, clarinets, horns, bassoons, tromboni, trumpets, and drums; the upper half of the page thus containing the wind-instruments: the lower half belongs to the violins, viola, voices, violoncello, and double base.
    • 2018, Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover's Companion to Orchestral Music, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 465:
      After another alternation of the two elements, there is a more playful episode, in which flute and bassoon take up the first element, with swooping glissando on the ondes Martenot.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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bassoon (third-person singular simple present bassoons, present participle bassooning, simple past and past participle bassooned)

  1. To play the bassoon.
  2. To make a bassoon-like sound.

Further reading

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Finnish

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Noun

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bassoon

  1. illative singular of basso
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