trombone

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian trombone (“a great trumpet”),^[2][3][4][5] and Barnhart and Hoad allow a second source in borrowed from French trombone, earlier trombon.^[6][7] The OED quotes Florio's gloss of 1598, "a bace or great sackbut, a great trump", and notes that the Italian word also meant a blunderbuss.^[2] It is the augmentative of tromba (“trumpet”), with the suffix -one,^[2][8][5][9] and tromba is from a Germanic source:^[3][6][4] compare Old High German trumba, trumpa (“trumpet, horn”).^[6][8][4] Dictionary.com has it reach Italian through Provençal,^[9] and Ayto takes the Old High German word as probably imitative of the instrument's sound.^[10] The same Germanic word gave, through Old French trompe and its diminutive trompette, the English trump and trumpet.^[10] The German word for the instrument, German Posaune, has a different source: it is from Old French buisine, from Latin buccina (“a crooked trumpet”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A large, loud brass instrument of the trumpet kind: 1724, in A Short Explication of Such Foreign Words, as Are Made Use of in Musick Books.^[2][6][3] Merriam-Webster dates it to about 1724,^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1715–25.^[9]

Semantic evolution

By the 19th century trombone was also used for the player (1847, in Dickens's Dombey and Son) and for an organ reed stop with a similar tone (1837).^[2][11] The Italian plural tromboni was used in English for blunderbusses, from 1754, in Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison.^[2] The verb, to play the trombone or to make a sound like one, dates from 1866, and a humorous use, to move something to and fro as in playing the instrument, from 1879.^[2] In Australia trombone is a green or yellow pear-shaped pumpkin variety (1946).^[2] In British thieves' slang it was a telephone, by partial rhyme (1959), and in American slang the verb has meant to work the slide of a pump shotgun (1990).^[12] Barnhart dates trombonist to 1889,^[6] the OED to 1891.^[2]

Timeline

• 1724 – a large brass instrument with a slide.^[2][6]
• 1754 – plural tromboni, blunderbusses.^[2]
• 1837 – an organ reed stop.^[2]
• 1847 – a trombone player.^[2]
• 1866 – verb, to play the trombone.^[2]
• 1946 – an Australian variety of pumpkin.^[2]
• 1959 – slang, a telephone.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A brass instrument pitched below the trumpet, with a long tube bent twice upon itself, a cupped mouthpiece, and a U-shaped slide that changes the length of the tube: She plays the bass trombone in a brass band.^[13][4][2]
2. A person who plays this instrument.^[2][11]
3. An organ reed stop with a tone like that of the instrument.^[2][11]

Verb

1. To play the trombone, or to make a sound like one.^[2]

Word family

• trombonist
• valve trombone

Related words

• trumpet
• trump

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins