Definitions

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

  • noun A large, valved, brass instrument with a bass pitch.
  • noun A reed stop in an organ, having eight-foot pitch.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A musical instrument of the trumpet family, of very large size and low pitch.
  • noun In organ-building, a reed-stop of large scale, so connected with a separate bellows with extra weights that the tones are of exceptional power and majesty. Usually called tuba mirabilis.
  • noun In anatomy and zoül, a tube or tubular part or organ; specifically, the Eustachian tube, or salpinx. See hydra tuba (under hydra), and cut under scyphistoma.
  • noun An ancient Roman trumpet with a straight tube of metal, like the Greek salpinx.
  • noun In the Philippine Islands, Guam, and the west coast of Mexico, the sap obtained from the immature inflorescence of the coconut, which is allowed to ferment and is used as a beverage, and from which a distilled liquor called vino, or aguardiente, is obtained.
  • noun In the peninsula of Malacca and the Malay Archipelago, a name applied to a number of fish-intoxicants, especially to Deguelia elliptica, and in the Philippine Islands to Croton Tiglium, Jatropha Curcas, and Cocculus Cocculus, used for the same purpose.

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

  • noun An ancient trumpet.
  • noun A sax-tuba. See sax-tuba.

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

  • noun A large brass musical instrument, usually in the bass range, played through a vibration of the lips upon the mouthpiece and fingering of the keys.

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

  • noun the lowest brass wind instrument

Etymologies

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

[Italian, from Latin, trumpet; akin to tubus, tube.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin tuba ("tube, trumpet").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Abut in reverse.

    July 22, 2007

  • The previous comment for this word gave me ophicleidic for my list of Adjcectival Arcana.

    July 12, 2010

  • Well then - tuba, or not tuba: that is the question. I aver this Shakespearean question is answered with a resounding "YES" judging from the various octubafest celebrations around the US. Am I correct that octubafest celebrations began at Indiana University's music school?

    July 12, 2010

  • Here's another spin (if you will) on tuba vs. not tuba - I think tornadoes have been associated with clouds called tuba (maybe Cumulonimbus tuba), but now those clouds are called funnel clouds.

    Edit: Maybe tuba clouds can indicate that a funnel cloud might be forming without being funnel clouds themselves... they might not be the same thing at all - do any of my fellow wordniks know?

    July 12, 2010

  • "3. n. In the peninsula of Malacca and the Malay Archipelago, a name applied to a number of fish-intoxicants, especially to Deguelia elliptica, and in the Philippine Islands to Croton Tiglium, Jatropha Curcas, and Cocculus Cocculus, used for the same purpose."

    --CD&C

    December 9, 2011