flute

• enPR: flo͞ot, IPA^(key): /fluːt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːt

From Middle English fleute, floute, flote, from Old French flaute, fleüte, from Old Provençal flaüt, of uncertain origin. Perhaps ultimately from three possibilities:

• Blend of Provencal flaujol (“flageolet”) + laüt (“lute”)
• From Latin flātus (“blowing”), from flāre (“to blow”)
• Imitative.

Doublet of flauta and fluyt.

flute (plural flutes)

2. (music) A woodwind instrument consisting of a tube with a row of holes that produce sound through vibrations caused by air blown across the edge of the holes, often tuned by plugging one or more holes with a finger; the Western concert flute, a transverse side-blown flute of European origin.
   • 1709, Alexander Pope, “January and May; or, The Merchant’s Tale, from Chaucer”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], published 1717, →OCLC, page 217:

     The breathing flute's ſoft notes are heard around, / And the ſhril trumpets mix their ſilver ſound; / The vaulted roofs vvith echoing muſic ring, / Theſe touch the vocal ſtops, and thoſe the trembling ſtring.

   • 2008 January 15, Jon Pareles, “To See (and Hear) the World in Five Hours: Unique Sounds Ripe for Import”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     The group played huge drums placed overhead, along with flutes and a kotolike zither.

   • 2018, Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover's Companion to Orchestral Music, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 465:

     After another alternation of the two elements, there is a more playful episode, in which flute and bassoon take up the first element, with swooping glissando on the ondes Martenot.

3. (colloquial) A recorder, also a woodwind instrument.
4. A glass with a long, narrow bowl and a long stem, used for drinking wine, especially champagne.
   • 2018, Sally Rooney, “Six Months Later (July 2013)”, in Normal People:

     These are champagne glasses, says Peggy.
     No, I mean the tall ones, Jamie says.
     You're thinking of flutes, says Peggy. These are coupes.

5. A lengthwise groove, such as one of the lengthwise grooves on a classical column, or a groove on a cutting tool (such as a drill bit, endmill, or reamer), which helps to form both a cutting edge and a channel through which chips can escape.

   Coordinate term: (cutter feature) tooth

6. (architecture, firearms) A semicylindrical vertical groove, as in a pillar, in plaited cloth, or in a rifle barrel to cut down the weight.
7. A long French bread roll, baguette.^[1]
8. An organ stop with a flute-like sound.
9. A shuttle in weaving tapestry etc.

• (as a specific instrument, a transverse, side-blown flute): Western concert flute
• (as a general category of musical instruments): edge-blown aerophone

• (music): fipple, labium

• flageolet
• flute-douce

• → Irish: fliúit
• → Welsh: ffliwt

• 1999. How to Love Your Flute: A Guide to Flutes and Flute Playing. Mark Shepard. Pg. 6.

flute (third-person singular simple present flutes, present participle fluting, simple past and past participle fluted)

1. (intransitive) To play on a flute.
2. (intransitive) To make a flutelike sound.
   • 1895, S. R. Crockett, A Cry Across the Black Water:

     The green turf was velvet underfoot. The blackbirds fluted in the hazels there.

3. (transitive) To utter with a flutelike sound.
   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XIII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     “Oh, there's my precious Poppet,” said Phyllis, as a distant barking reached the ears. “He's asking for his dinner, the sweet little angel. All right, darling, Mother's coming,” she fluted, and buzzed off on the errand of mercy.

4. (transitive) To form flutes or channels in (as in a column, a ruffle, etc.); to cut a semicylindrical vertical groove in (as in a pillar, etc.).

• flute around
• champagne flute
• flautist
• fluted (adjective)

Compare French flûte (“a transport”)?, Dutch fluit.

flute (plural flutes)

1. A kind of flyboat; a storeship.

• flute on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Flute in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
• “flute”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
• “flute”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “flute”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 2290.
• “flute”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “flute”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “flute”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “flute”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “flute”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• IPA^(key): /flyt/

• Audio:

  (file)

flute f (plural flutes)

1. post-1990 spelling of flûte

• “flute”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

flute

1. inflection of fluten:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. first/third-person singular subjunctive I
   3. singular imperative

From flûte, from French flûte, from Old French fleüte, from Old Occitan flaut.

• IPA^(key): /ˈflut/
• Rhymes: -ut
• Hyphenation: flùte

flute m (invariable)

1. flute (type of glass)

   Synonyms: flûte, fluttino