barrel organ

• barrel-organ

barrel organ (plural barrel organs)

1. A musical instrument in which air from a bellows is admitted to a set of pipes by means of pins inserted into a revolving barrel (typically turned by a crank), originating in France.

   Synonyms: roller organ, street organ

   • 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book (please specify |book=I to VIII):

     Poor Mrs. Cranch was bulky, and, breathing asthmatically, had the additional motive for making her remarks unexceptionable and giving them a general bearing, that even her whispers were loud and liable to sudden bursts like those of a deranged barrel-organ.

   • 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LXXXIII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:

     Ragged children played in the road, and an old barrel-organ was grinding out a vulgar tune.

• barrel organist

• organ grinder