VIOLIN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does violin mean? 

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

1. bowed stringed instrument that is the highest member of the violin family; this instrument has four strings and a hollow body and an unfretted fingerboard and is played with a bow

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• VIOLIN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Bowed stringed instrument that is the highest member of the violin family; this instrument has four strings and a hollow body and an unfretted fingerboard and is played with a bow

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

fiddle; violin

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

bowed stringed instrument; string (stringed instruments that are played with a bow)

Meronyms (parts of "violin"):

chin rest (a rest on which a violinist can place the chin)

fiddlestick; violin bow (a bow used in playing the violin)

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

Amati (a violin made by Nicolo Amati or a member of his family)

Guarnerius (a violin made by a member of the Guarneri family)

Strad; Stradavarius (a violin made by Antonio Stradivari or a member of his family)

Derivation:

violinist (a musician who plays the violin)

 Context examples 

They were in the ballroom, the violins were playing, and her mind was in a flutter that forbade its fixing on anything serious.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Draw your chair up and hand me my violin, for the only problem we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He ran out and ran in, smoked incessantly, played snatches on his violin, sank into reveries, devoured sandwiches at irregular hours, and hardly answered the casual questions which I put to him.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the country, an unpremeditated dance was very allowable; but in London, where the reputation of elegance was more important and less easily attained, it was risking too much for the gratification of a few girls, to have it known that Lady Middleton had given a small dance of eight or nine couple, with two violins, and a mere side-board collation.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

We had a pleasant little meal together, during which Holmes would talk about nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation how he had purchased his own Stradivarius, which was worth at least five hundred guineas, at a Jew broker’s in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five shillings.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For an hour he droned away upon his violin, endeavouring to soothe his own ruffled spirits.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was Fanny's first ball, though without the preparation or splendour of many a young lady's first ball, being the thought only of the afternoon, built on the late acquisition of a violin player in the servants' hall, and the possibility of raising five couple with the help of Mrs. Grant and a new intimate friend of Mr. Bertram's just arrived on a visit.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

There is nothing more to be said or to be done to-night, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellow men.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He had a horror of destroying documents, especially those which were connected with his past cases, and yet it was only once in every year or two that he would muster energy to docket and arrange them; for, as I have mentioned somewhere in these incoherent memoirs, the outbursts of passionate energy when he performed the remarkable feats with which his name is associated were followed by reactions of lethargy during which he would lie about with his violin and his books, hardly moving save from the sofa to the table.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)