Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various early double-reed wind instruments, forerunners of the modern oboe.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A musical instrument of the oboe class, having a double reed inclosed in a globular mouthpiece. It was akin to the musette and the bagpipe, and passed over into the bassoon. The word survives in the chalumeau register of the clarinet. It is inaccurately used in the Prayer-book version of the 98th Psalm for cornet or horn. Compare
bombard , 6.
Wiktionary
- n. a mediaeval double reed wind instrument with conical wooden body
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A wind instrument of music, formerly in use, supposed to have resembled either the clarinet or the hautboy in form.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a medieval oboe
Etymologies
- Middle English schalme, from Old French chalemie, alteration of chalemel, from Late Latin calamellus, diminutive of Latin calamus, reed, from Greek kalamos.
Examples
“shawm" was a musical instrument resembling the clarinet.”
“Musicians entertained from the gallery above the kings, offering delicate love songs and lively tunes on harp, lute, and shawm.”
“I think he also plays the crummhorn, or maybe the shawm.”
“Wherever Kahlan went, she could hear pipes and drums, or the piercing notes of a shawm, or the melodic chords of strings.”
“The painting portrays Renaissance instruments with great accuracy: a tenor or alto shawm, a precursor of the English horn; a Gothic harp; a brass trumpet; a portative organ; a vielle, an early form of violin; a soprano or treble shawm, a distant forerunner of the oboe; a lute; three recorders; a dulcimer being struck by a light hammer; and a harp.”
“I actually wanted to use shawm in the bridging piece, but I don't seem to have one easily to hand -- then again, my organization being what it is, I may have half a dozen sampled shawms and just be clueless.”
“Huge-headdressed Beijing opera singers twirling their long sleeves while a guy dressed as a monkey bounces around the stage eating a peach, accompanied by hella loud gongs and a blaring shawm?”
“A sackbut is a brass horn that looks alot like a trombone with a slightly smaller bell, and a shawm is a double reed instrument that is a predecessor to the oboe.”
“Like a shawm for holy masses or the wind through garden grasses, prayer of the saints now passes through angelic harmonies.”
“He watched her coming up the road, his finger tapping against his bent knee as the shawm played a bouncy tune Fitch knew, called "Round the Well and Back," about a man chasing a woman he loved, but who always ignored him. the man finally had enough and chased her in the song until he caught her.”
Soul of the Fire
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘shawm’.
-
Organ Stops
A list of pipe- and pedal-organ stops. These have variously and perhaps at times capriciously been named and labelled by organ builders in Latin, English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, a...
diapason, double open diapason, sub-bourdon, double dulciana, bourdon, contra gamba, pyramidon, open diapason, stopped diapason, dulcis, dulciana, viol-di-gamba and 237 more...
-
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...
-
harmonygritz's Cross Words
Words discovered while doing puzzles. Includes puns, e.g. taper vs. tapir.
hodad, hart, avocet, cahier, blackbird, brace, fetor, Bren, Rialto, bijou, liveried, stentor and 60 more...
-
Never For Sale On Craigslist
List of items never for sale on craigslist.
Should you find one of these for sale, let us know. We'll scare you up a coupon for a free day at a gym or something.vectis, soupir, porcupine-machine, electric pig, poke-bonnet, shawm, staddle stone, dvergr, beating-engine, hicon, figurehead, low-warp loom and 31 more...
knitandpurl "After a little while he no longer heard the drums, the lutes, the flutes (or shawms) as concert, or as any kind of music."
Don Juan: His Own Version by Peter Handke, translated by Krishna Winston, p 56 Apr 14, 2010
sionnach Plus, the shawm is famous for its anti-zombie powers, as evidenced by the cult hit film "Shawm of the Dead". Mar 25, 2008
chained_bear "... all in a stifling atmosphere, with people playing shawms outside to prevent the possibility of eavesdropping—shawms in no key known to him or range of intervals..."
--P. O'Brian, The Hundred Days, 138–139 Mar 25, 2008
yarb "Once before he had paused, and love with its horrid rout, its shawms, its cymbals, and its heads with gory locks torn from the shoulders had burst in."
- Orlando, Virginia Woolf. Feb 5, 2008