flute

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English floute, also floite and fleute,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French flaüte, also fleüte and flahute,^[5][6][3][7] now flûte.^[5][3] The French word is probably from Old Occitan flaüt,^{[8][3][7][9][6]} itself of uncertain origin.^[10][6][8] Many dictionaries take it as a blend of flaujol (“flageolet”), the source of flageolet, and laüt (“lute”),^{[11][3][7][9][4]} and Merriam-Webster traces flaujol to Vulgar Latin *flābeolum.^[12][11] Barnhart doubts the influence of lute, a stringed instrument held and played quite differently.^[6] Others think the word imitative, or connect it with Latin flō (“to blow”),^{[10][8][13][14]} which Watkins derives from Proto-Indo-European *bʰle- (“to blow”);^[10] the OED calls the origin unknown and rejects Diez's derivation from Latin as phonologically impossible.^[5] flauta and flauto were probably taken from French or Provençal,^[5][4] and Middle High German floite, now German Flöte, and Dutch fluit were borrowed from French.^[5][10] The verb is flouten, from the noun or from fleüter.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A flute or shepherd's pipe: before 1325, glossing French frestele in the Bibbesworth glosses;^[2][6] Barnhart finds the word implied still earlier in flouter, a flute player, as a surname of 1225.^[6] The OED's first quotation is from Chaucer's House of Fame (about 1384).^[5]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that early flutes were blown straight through a mouthpiece, and that the modern transverse or "German" flute developed in the 18th century;^[10] Theobald Boehm perfected the key system of the concert flute in 1834.^[10] From 1613 flute was an organ stop with a flute-like tone.^[5] Several senses come from the instrument's long, thin shape:^[8][10] a tall, slender wine glass (1649),^[5][10] a shuttle in tapestry weaving (1728) and a thin French loaf (1855).^[5] In architecture a flute is a groove in a column, recorded from 1660 and compared to half of a flute split lengthwise;^[5][10][6] the verb "to make flutes in" is older, from 1578,^[5][10] and the sense spread to any groove or channel (1728).^[5] Slang uses include the Recorder of London (1699, a pun on recorder), a pistol (1842) and the penis (from 1611).^[5][15] In Australian slang to flute was to talk incessantly (1890).^[15] Johnson (1755) defined it as a musical pipe with stops for the fingers.^[16]

Timeline

• 1225 – implied in the surname flouter, a flute player.^[6]
• before 1325 – floute, a flute.^[2][6]
• c. 1384 – in Chaucer's House of Fame.^[5]
• c. 1387–95 – verb, to play the flute, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.^[6][5]
• 1542 – a flute player.^[5]
• 1578 – verb, to make grooves in.^[5]
• 1613 – an organ stop.^[5]
• 1649 – a tall, narrow wine glass.^[5]
• 1660 – a groove in a column.^[5][6]
• 1842 – verb, to play a tune on the flute; noun, slang, a pistol.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A woodwind instrument without a reed, a tube with finger holes or keys, played by blowing across a hole near one end and held sideways: She played the flute in the school orchestra.^[17][12][5]
2. Any similar pipe or instrument, such as a recorder.^[12][5]
3. A tall, narrow wine glass, used especially for champagne.^[17][12][5]
4. (architecture) A rounded groove cut lengthwise in the shaft of a column; any similar groove, as in cloth or a pie crust.^[17][12][5]
5. An organ stop with a flute-like tone.^[12][5]

Verb

1. To play on a flute, or to make a clear, soft sound like one.^[17][12][5]
2. To whistle, sing or say something in flute-like tones: A blackbird fluted from the hedge.^[12][5][7]
3. To make grooves in: fluted the edge of the pastry.^[17][12][5]

Word family

• fluter
• flutelike
• flutey
• flutist
• fluty

Related words

• flageolet
• flautist
• fluted
• flout
• lute

Usage notes

A separate noun flute, a Dutch flyboat (from 1567) and later a warship carrying part of her guns to serve as a transport (1666), came through flûte from fluit, perhaps the same word.^[5][7][12] Ayto notes that American English prefers flutist (1603) to flautist (19th century), from Italian;^[8][6] he calls flutist a native formation, while Barnhart takes it as probably a borrowing of French flûtiste.^[8][6]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins