BAGPIPE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bagpipe mean? 

• BAGPIPE (noun)
  The noun BAGPIPE has 1 sense:

1. a tubular wind instrument; the player blows air into a bag and squeezes it out through the drone

  Familiarity information: BAGPIPE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BAGPIPE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A tubular wind instrument; the player blows air into a bag and squeezes it out through the drone

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("bagpipe" is a kind of...):

pipe (a tubular wind instrument)

Meronyms (parts of "bagpipe"):

chanter; melody pipe (reed pipe with finger holes on which the melody is played)

bourdon; drone; drone pipe (a pipe of the bagpipe that is tuned to produce a single continuous tone)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bagpipe"):

musette; shepherd's pipe (a small bagpipe formerly popular in France)

 Context examples 

He was the usual cut and dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent and about as emotional as a bagpipe.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I remember, one morning, when Glumdalclitch had set me in a box upon a window, as she usually did in fair days to give me air (for I durst not venture to let the box be hung on a nail out of the window, as we do with cages in England), after I had lifted up one of my sashes, and sat down at my table to eat a piece of sweet cake for my breakfast, above twenty wasps, allured by the smell, came flying into the room, humming louder than the drones of as many bagpipes.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

One joyful night, therefore, I noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and I have never heard it since; though I still recognize the old drone in the newspapers, without any substantial variation (except, perhaps, that there is more of it), all the livelong session.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)