Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The largest and lowest pitched of the double-reed wind instruments, sounding an octave below the bassoon.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun music A larger version of the bassoon sounding one octave lower, having a technique similar to the bassoon but offers more resistance in every way.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the bassoon that is the largest instrument in the oboe family

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Semi-anglicized version of Italian contrafagotto, probably following the model of the English word contrabass (which derives from Italian contrabbasso).

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