Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A series of variations on a martial theme or traditional dirge for the highland bagpipes.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A wild, irregular kind of music, peculiar to the Scottish Highlands, performed upon the bagpipe. It consists of a ground-theme or air called the urlar, followed by several variations, generally three or four, the whole concluding with a quick movement called the creanduidh. Pibrochs usually increase in difficulty from the beginning to the end, and are profusely ornamented with grace-notes called
warblers . They are generally intended to excite a martial spirit. They also often constitute a kind of program-music, intended to represent the various phases of a battle —the march, the attack, the conflict, the flight, the pursuit, and the lament for the fallen. The names they bear are often derived from historical or legendary events. as “The Raid of Kilchrist,” attributed to the piper of Macdonald of Glengarry, and supposed to have been composed in 1603. The term is sometimes used figuratively by poets to denote the bagpipe itself.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A Highland air, suited to the particular passion which the musician would either excite or assuage; generally applied to those airs that are played on the bagpipe before the Highlanders when they go out to battle.
WordNet 3.0
- n. martial music with variations; to be played by bagpipes
Etymologies
- From Scottish Gaelic pìobaireachd ("act of playing the bagpipes"), from pìobaire ("piper") + -achd abstract noun suffix. (Wiktionary)
- Scottish Gaelic pìobaireachd, pipe music, from pìobair, piper, from pìob, pipe, from Middle Irish píp, from Medieval Latin pīpa, from Vulgar Latin *pīpa; see pipe. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“To this opinion Dr. Beattie has given his suffrage, in that following elegant passage: -- 'A pibroch is a species of tune, peculiar, I think, to the Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland.”
“A pibroch would cry for the wounded man but I needed more - I needed something tougher.”
Fictionaut: They didn’t read Pitchfork or Stereogum or Gorilla vs. Bear or Hipster Runoff
“British MP George Galloway, a supporter of the anti-Israeli boycott movement, in his relentless pibroch against the Jewish state compares the Palestinians to the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae.”
On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
“Tracie #57: I thought it was well known that the preferred musical instrument in hell was the pibroch.”
“The last, nevertheless, again grasped his instrument, and the pibroch of the clan yet poured its expiring notes over the Clan Chattan, while the dying minstrel had breath to inspire it.”
““Nay, then, I will don thy buff coat and cap of steel, and walk with thy swashing step, and whistling thy pibroch of ‘Broken Bones at Loncarty’; and if they take me for thee, there dare not four of them come near me.””
“Oliver at last relieved his host by swaggering off, imitating as well as he could the sturdy step and outward gesture of his redoubted companion, and whistling a pibroch composed on the rout of the Danes at”
“The wild wailings of the pibroch were heard at times, interchanged with the drums and fifes, which beat the Dead March.”
“The bagpipe-player in the centre dropped his melancholy eyes, filled with the reflections of the forests and the lakes, in profound inattention, while men were being exterminated around him, and seated on a drum, with his pibroch under his arm, played the Highland airs.”
“However, a few wee drams and a CD of pibroch music helps me get over it.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pibroch’.
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pabouche, pabulous, pabulum, pacable, pace, pachydermia, pachyglossal, pachymeter, pachynsis, paciferous, pacificate, pactolian and 1766 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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tatterdemalion's list
chrysalis, colloquy, peroration, syncretism, dickering, gamelan, dictatress, adventurism, untenable, presumption of fa..., lovelorn, bawdily and 47 more...
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Under The Kilt
Anything related to Scottish culture, cuisine, language, history and so on. Does not include Gaelic words unless acceptable (roughly speaking!) in a wider sense.
brae, machair, loch, burn, inverness, shieling, camanachd, shinty, diddy, bhoy, ghillie, brownie and 393 more...
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Rogue's Words for bonnie lads n lassies
tinchel, glen, sassenach, guddle, brae, bonnie, eejit, deerhound, hoonds, lassie, laddie, heiland and 188 more...
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Bagpipes
"God's own music," said the guide to me in Edinburgh. At least God was enthusiastic enough to bestow the squealing bag many names.
bagpipes, zampogna, koza, dudy, gaida, surdulina, northumbrian smal..., gaita, chevrette, chiaramedda, gajdy, biniou and 23 more...
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Verbiage
enfleurage, mysteriarch, chantepleure, mellifluous, inkhorn, bergamot, prestidigitation, legerdemain, mortmain, lomcevak, pilbroch, pilbrooch and 17 more...
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Piping
tailback, blowpipe, valve, drone, chanter, bag, skeepskin, pipe banner, bag seasoning, stocks, reed, henderson and 49 more...
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Welcome in Wonderland
Real words that I think would fit right into Wonderland/Underland vocabulary. Because I'm a geeky fangirl and that's how I roll. ^_^
widdershins, kenspeckle, thropple, whigmaleerie, swither, kerfuffle, stravaig, guddle, tapsalteerie, clashmaclavers, murgullie, umbersorrow and 37 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pibroch.
yarb "...all around us, under the orderly bucolic antiphonies of drunken argument, I could hear swelling wild, swift, and ominous the pibroch of hysteria."
- W.M. Spackman, Heyday Dec 22, 2011
chained_bear See piobaireachd. Oct 31, 2007