Musette
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any of various small bagpipes having a soft sound, especially with a bellows, which were popular in France in the 17th and early 18th century. historical
- 2 a small bagpipe formerly popular in France wordnet
- 3 Any of various small bagpipes having a soft sound, especially with a bellows, which were popular in France in the 17th and early 18th century.; A pastoral air or tune that has a drone imitating such an instrument; also, a dance performed to this music. broadly, historical
- 4 An organ stop using reed pipes with cone-shaped resonators, found in organs in France in the 17th and 18th centuries. historical
- 5 A small oboe without a cap for its reed, which evolved from the chanter or pipe of bagpipes; a piccolo oboe.
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- 6 In full musette bag: a small bag or knapsack with a shoulder strap, formerly used by soldiers, and now (cycling) chiefly by cyclists to hold food and beverages or other items. US
"The young gentleman had a musette over his shoulder."
Example
More examples"The young gentleman had a musette over his shoulder."
Etymology
From both of the following: * Late Middle English musette (“type of bagpipe”), from Middle French musette, Old French musette (“type of bagpipe”) (modern French musette), from muse (“bagpipe”) + -ette (diminutive suffix). Muse is derived from muser (“to play the bagpipe; (figuratively) to flatter”), perhaps from musel (“muzzle (protruding part of an animal’s head)”) (alluding to a bagpipe player puffing out the cheeks), from Late Latin mūsus (“muzzle”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps expressive of protruding lips and/or influenced by Latin mūgiō (“to bellow, low, moo”), from Proto-Indo-European *mug-, *mūg- (onomatopoeia of the lowing of cattle). * Borrowed from French musette in the 18th century. Sense 2 (“small bag or knapsack with a shoulder strap”) is due to the resemblance of the original knapsack to the bag of bagpipes.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.