Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A large mechanical instrument resembling a barrel organ that produces sound in imitation of an orchestra.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A mechanical musical instrument, essentially similar to a barrel-organ, but having many different stops, etc., which allow the imitation of a large variety of orchestral instruments and the production of quite complicated musical works. Many different names have been applied to different varieties of the instrument.
Wiktionary
- n. music a mechanical multiple musical instrument which allows one player to play all the parts of an orchestrated piece of music.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A large music box imitating a variety of orchestral instruments.
Etymologies
- orchestr(a) + (melod)eon. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I see in St. Louis once what they call a orchestrion [93],' says”
“Orchestrion brings a musical idea from the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- a large mechanical multi-instrument device that utilizes actual orchestral instruments of various types, called an "orchestrion" -- to the technologies of today.”
“Orchestrion brings a musical idea from the late 19th and early 20th centuries - a large mechanical multi-instrument device that utilizes actual orchestral instruments of various types, called an "orchestrion" - to the technologies of today.”
“Performing with the orchestrion is a primary motivation behind the endeavor.”
“The term "orchestrion" once described a self-playing, multi-instrumental music machine that disappeared almost a century ago.”
“Bob and Paul Milhous became obsessed one day with owning a Weber Maestro orchestrion, a huge mechanical instrument that generates the sounds of a 24-piece orchestra.”
“If there's anything about Metheny's orchestrion that might raise eyebrows, it's the lack of human interaction.”
“KAHN: Seeing the orchestrion in action is like watching Santa's workshop - if Santa was a jazz cat.”
“Jeremie Ryder, a conservator at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey, cranks up the Popper's Rex, an orchestrion built in Leipzig, Germany in 1913.”
“KAHN: In a small former church in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Metheny's updated orchestrion does away with the cabinet.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘orchestrion’.
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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Not in the Periodic Table
Words that sound like they might be the names of elements of the periodic table, but that aren't. Many of the words listed here were actually proposed as names for substances their creators thought...
tentorium, columbarium, nasturtium, deuterium, caladium, valerian, concordium, synangium, chorium, geranium, hymenium, pyrenium and 310 more...
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Verecund, flivver, etc
Just some words I happen to enjoy. Some thread-worn, some not.
yegg, yob, verecund, amatory, fermata, threepenny, gruntled, flivver, gamboge, decolletage, ordure, nudnik and 173 more...
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Non-vital organs
concertina, pipe organ, calliope, harmonium, accordion, reed organ, melodicon, hydraulicon, euphoniad, orchestrion, barrel organ, wurlitzer and 31 more...
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Soap Box
call box, dialog box, voice box, boom box, soap box, press box, ballot box, scorebox, black box, chatterbox, letterbox, smegmatic box and 26 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for orchestrion.
oroboros Pat Metheny has re-invented this turn-of-the-twentieth-century contraption. Apr 17, 2010