Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The mouth of a river.
  • noun The mouthpiece of a woodwind or brass instrument.
  • noun The manner in which the lips and tongue are applied to such a mouthpiece.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The mouth of a river, etc.; the point of discharge of a flowing stream.
  • noun A mouthpiece.
  • noun In vocalization: The position of the vocal organs in forming a tone.
  • noun The particular character of the tone itself, especially at its beginning. Occasionally the term is further defined as palatal, dental, etc., according to the apparent position of the center of resonance.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The mouth of a river; also, the mouth of a cannon.
  • noun The mouthpiece of a wind instrument.
  • noun The shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun music The shape of the mouth and lips when playing a wind instrument.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the aperture of a wind instrument into which the player blows directly

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from emboucher, to put or go into the mouth, from Old French : en-, in; see en– + bouche, mouth (from Latin bucca, cheek).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French embouchure, from emboucher.

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Examples

  • On the York River, near its embouchure, is the little port of Yorktown, famous for the surrender of Lord Cornwallis to the American forces in 1781.

    Plan of the Seat of War in Eastern Virginia 1862

  • It may be described as the embouchure of the Wady Dumayghah, which falls into its head, and which, doubtless, in olden times, when the land was wooded, used to roll

    The Land of Midian — Volume 2 Richard Francis Burton 1855

  • I know what "embouchure" is dodo, you're not correcting anything.

    HorsesAss.Org 2009

  • I know what "embouchure" is dodo, you're not correcting anything.

    HorsesAss.Org 2009

  • I know what "embouchure" is dodo, you're not correcting anything.

    HorsesAss.Org 2009

  • Don't you think "embouchure" is too big of a vocabulary word for the Anoop fans.

    Top Stories - Google News 2009

  • The duduk is a simple instrument; but deceptively so, in that it requires an embouchure and diaphragm of steel plus circular breathing to elicit its haunting, cool sound.

    Michal Shapiro: Grandfather, Grandson, Grandmasters (Video) Michal Shapiro 2011

  • The duduk is a simple instrument; but deceptively so, in that it requires an embouchure and diaphragm of steel plus circular breathing to elicit its haunting, cool sound.

    Michal Shapiro: Grandfather, Grandson, Grandmasters (Video) Michal Shapiro 2011

  • To the west were the red-coats of the Royal Marines, and from the Union Club to the embouchure of Whitehall swept the glittering, massive curve of the 1st Life Guards -- gigantic men mounted on gigantic chargers, steel-breastplated, steel-helmeted, steel-caparisoned, a great war-sword of steel ready to the hand of the powers that be.

    CORONATION DAY 2010

  • I'm not playing the sax, because the embouchure the mouth position used to blow into the instrument is totally different and I don't want to mess with it.

    Constructing a 'House of Lies' John Jurgensen 2011

  • With the correct technique, musical colours and textures are shaped by limitless combinations of airspeed, embouchure (combined action of the tongue, mouth and breath), and the light toggling of fingers over the holes.

    Dystonia plagues musicians and has no easy remedies | Aeon Essays 2023

Comments

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  • The placement of the lips, lower facial muscles, and jaws in playing a wind instrument, or the aperture of a wind instrument into which the player blows directly.

    August 9, 2007

  • "When people make promises it's always with only a percentage of themselves; he had heard it many times, weddings, confirmations, sworn blood brotherhoods. There is never more than ten per cent of the total persona behind the golden promises, because that is as much of ourselves as we control; it was true of himself as well.

    But not this moment. This moment there was suddenly more. He could hear his body vibrate, like a wind instrument when the embouchure all at once succeeds and a great deal of the energy becomes the tone."

    - 'The Quiet Girl', Peter Høeg.

    March 18, 2008

  • This word is likely used rarely in the population at large, but among brass and woodwind instrumentalists, it is common, and essential. Perfecting one's embouchure is a lifelong pursuit for anyone who plays an instrument that connects with or enters the mouth. The embouchure is part of the source of the resulting music.

    June 10, 2009

  • Woodwind instruments divide into four categories: those with a single reed (clarinets, saxophones), those with a double reed (oboes and bassoons), recorders and transverse flutes. Control of the double reed is highly demanding of the player's embouchure, and draws upon the contribution of the lips, teeth and jaw. Problems with the jaw are not unusual with oboe players.

    February 15, 2013

  • If we used a saw to cut them all in half, we could have 8 categories.

    February 16, 2013