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Trombone   Listen
noun
Trombone  n.  
1.
(Mus.) A powerful brass instrument of the trumpet kind, thought by some to be the ancient sackbut, consisting of a tube in three parts, bent twice upon itself and ending in a bell. The middle part, bent double, slips into the outer parts, as in a telescope, so that by change of the vibrating length any tone within the compass of the instrument (which may be bass or tenor or alto or even, in rare instances, soprano) is commanded. It is the only member of the family of wind instruments whose scale, both diatonic and chromatic, is complete without the aid of keys or pistons, and which can slide from note to note as smoothly as the human voice or a violin. Softly blown, it has a rich and mellow sound, which becomes harsh and blatant when the tones are forced; used with discretion, its effect is often solemn and majestic.
2.
(Zool.) The common European bittern.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Trombone" Quotes from Famous Books



... three feet across, the steel rings round it were like the hoops of a dog-cart, and the black drumsticks, according to Pete, were like the bullet heads of two niggers. Jonaique Jelly played the clarionet, and John the Widow played the trombone, but the drum was the leading instrument. Pete himself played it. He pounded it, boomed it, thundered it. While he did so, his eyes blazed with rapture. A big heroic soul spoke out of the drum for Pete. With the strap over his shoulders, he did not trouble much about the tune. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... journal with its blatant enthusiasms and its brazen effrontery finds a congenial habitat there, not because it is brazen, nor even because it is enthusiastic, but because it supplies a community need. The screaming headline is a mental cocktail. Bellowed forth by a trombone-lunged newsboy, it crashes against the eye, the ear and the brain simultaneously. It whips up tired nerves. It keys the crowd to the keen tension necessary for the doing of the city's business. And the crowd likes it. Fed hourly on mental stimulants, ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks

... and her husband, who came to Waco to attend the funeral, being summoned from their Fort Worth home. A brass quartette, composed of L. N. Griffin, first cornet; J. C. Arratt, second cornet; H. C. Collier, trombone; Fred Podgen, baritone horn, rendered sweet sacred music, one selection being Nearer My God to Thee. Mrs. Tekla Weslow Kempner sung Mr. Brann's favorite selection, The Bridge. The service was conducted by Rev. Frank ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... flying to Tieffurt in imagination?—And lo, at the entrance to the church our excellent Grosse [The trombonist of the Weimar orchestra (died 1874), who was so faithfully devoted to Liszt, and whom the latter remembered in his will] met me with his trombone, and I recollected an old promise—namely, to compose a "piece" for his use on Sundays. I immediately set to work at it, and out of my "Cantico" has now arisen a Concertante piece for Trombone and Organ. I will send you the piece as an Easter egg by the middle of April. [Published by Kahnt ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... village ordinance at a forty-mile an hour clip and would have had Rajah hull down in about two minutes, but Pinckney had to take one last look. The poor old mutt had quit after a few jumps. He had squat in the middle of the road, lifted up his trombone frontispiece and was bellowin' out his grief like a calf that has lost its mommer. Pinckney couldn't stand for that ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... (which makes me look like a modern Messalina, which I am not). Gerald is prepared to accept me as a "pal," provided that I play David to his Saul by regaling him on Sunday mornings with negroid melodies, which he punctuates with snorts on the trombone. If he knew that I went to early morning service all would be at an end between us. Finally, Anthony wants me to remain as I was and really am. So you see that I have to lead not a dual but a triple life, and am only spared the necessity of making it quadruple ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various

... is dying of ennui, they say, and to kill time engages in all sorts of manual labor. When he gets tired of that he blows the trombone. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... Dr. Witkowski,[A] "are quite at issue when they endeavour to determine what kind of instrument the vocal organ resembles; indeed, Galien compares it to a flute, Magendie to a hautboy, Despiney to a trombone, Diday to a hunting-horn, Savart to a bird-catcher's call, Biot to an organ-pipe, Malgaigne to the little instrument used by the exhibitors of Punch, and Ferrein to a spinet or harpsichord. The last-named ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke

... and the marrow-bones and cleavers too; and a brass band too. The first, are practising in a back settlement near Battlebridge; the second, put themselves in communication, through their chief, with Mr Towlinson, to whom they offer terms to be bought off; and the third, in the person of an artful trombone, lurks and dodges round the corner, waiting for some traitor tradesman to reveal the place and hour of breakfast, for a bribe. Expectation and excitement extend further yet, and take a wider range. From Balls Pond, Mr Perch brings Mrs Perch to spend the day with Mr Dombey's servants, and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... tune of our own To help us trollop along, But every neck is a hair trombone (Rtt-ta-ta-ta! is a hair trombone!) And this our marching-song: Can't! Don't! Shan't! Won't! Pass it along the line! Somebody's pack has slid from his back, Wish it were only mine! Somebody's load has tipped off in the road— Cheer for ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... Saxophone, trombone, piccolo, snare-drum and other barbaric instruments opened with a brazen defiance of music, and a vibrant assurance of quick, raw, strong sounds. Lane himself felt the stirring effect upon his nerves. He had difficulty in keeping ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... appeared before the sleeper's eyes. In the midst was one lily far larger than the rest, and of a dazzling white. This spoke in a gentle voice, but with the tones of a trombone: ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... Charles by correspondence was King Mtsa of Uganda, 'who had been presented by us in 1880, at the request of the Queen and the Church Missionary Society, with a Court suit, a trombone, and an Arabic Bible,' but who relapsed early in 1881, and became again the chief pillar of the slave trade in his district. Another strange monarch played his part that year ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... snuff; and the belle whose grace and propriety of demeanour were themes of general admiration, thought it not unbecoming to take a pinch at dinner, or to blow her pretty nose in her embroidered mouchoir with the sound of a trombone. Louis endeavored to discourage the use of snuff and his valets-de-chambre were obliged to renounce it when they were appointed to their office. One of these gentlemen, the Duc d'Harcourt, was supposed to have died of apoplexy in consequence of having, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... curry favour with anybody he robs; catch old Mumbo Jumbo currying favour with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean and Chapter, should he meet them in a stage-coach; it would be with him, Bricconi Abbasso, as he knocked their teeth out with the butt of his trombone; and the old regular-built ruffian would be all the safer for it, as Bill would say, as ten to one the Archbishop and Chapter, after such a spice of his quality, would be afraid to swear against him, and to hang him, even if he were in their power, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... had the place fixed up fancy, too, blue and green toy balloons floatin' around the ceilin', a peacock in a big gold cage, tables ranged around the dancin' space, and the trombone artist puttin' his whole soul into a pumpin' out "The Alcoholic Blues." And you could order most anything off the menu, from a poulet casserole to a cheese sandwich. Amby and 'Chita splurged on a cafe parfait and a grape juice rickey. Other dissipated couples at nearby ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford

... of this bell, Sister Benigna rose instantly, saying, "Welcome sound!" Loretz also came forth from his corner. He was about to speak to Leonhard, when Benigna took up the trombone which was lying on the piano, and said, "I am curious to know how many rehearsals you have had, sir. It is time, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... distant, and as yet referred to no distinct place—then a faint mixture of a clear chime that is almost music—now a tune—and at last, rousing the massy multitude to enthusiasm, a military march, swelling various, profound, and high, with drum, trombone, serpent, trump, clarionet, fife, flute, and cymbal, bringing slowly on (is it the measured tramp of the feet of men, or the confused trampling of horses?) banners floating over the procession, above the glitter of steel, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... Circus Bands, Killing Pigs, Cat Greeting Her Kitten, Barn-Yard of Hens and Roosters, Opera Singers with Guitar, Whistling with Guitar, Old Lady Singing with False Teeth, Cow and Calf, Harmonica with the Guitar, Arab Song, Trombone ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne

... such as horn, trombone, and trumpet, the lips of the player vibrate and excite the air within. Varying pitches are obtained partly by the varying wind pressure of the musician; if he breathes fast, the pitch rises; if he breathes slowly, the pitch falls. All of these instruments, however, except the trombone ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... to the rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming the external show of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had at the outset played a funeral march in dumb show upon an imaginary trombone, desisted, from a lack of sympathy and appreciation,—not having, perhaps, your true humorist's capacity to be content with the enjoyment of ...
— Tennessee's Partner • Bret Harte

... Way he sits in to it, like one together, mutual understanding. Tiresome shapers scraping fiddles, eye on the bowend, sawing the cello, remind you of toothache. Her high long snore. Night we were in the box. Trombone under blowing like a grampus, between the acts, other brass chap unscrewing, emptying spittle. Conductor's legs too, bagstrousers, jiggedy jiggedy. Do ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... the songs of nature beside the birds. In the spring I heard the toads and frogs and turtles making merriment in their little sitting-rooms in the pools of water in low places. In the summer I heard the locusts sing and the lazy croak of bullfrog, bearing the relation of trombone in the orchestra of nature to the other musicians, whilst the fireflies were dancing in mid-air all around him—he winking at them with those wondrous projecting eyes. In the autumn the cricket was my favorite, and he was kind enough at times to come into our ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... don't. Well, after dinner we were a little dull and rather at a loss, because Juliet, my niece, you know, had cut her finger and couldn't play the piano excepting with the left hand, and that is so monotonous as well as fatiguing, and the Colleys are not musical, excepting Adolphus, who plays the trombone, but he hadn't got it with him, and then, fortunately, Walter came in and brought the 'Thumbograph' and took all our thumb-prints and his own as well, and we were very much amused, and Matilda Colley—that is the eldest daughter but ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... and a parlor set, make-up boxes, wardrobe trunks, a slide trombone and—" mused Mr. Bacon, and would have gone on but for ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... and he succeeded. Losing all note of time and place, I thought for a moment I was in London, and that this was a visit from the Christmas waits. But there was a liveliness in the tones incompatible with the season when the clarionet, trombone, and cornet-a-piston form a syndicate of noise, and parade the streets for halfpence. The bugle was in a jocular mood. Judge of my astonishment when I learned that this merry melody was the Carlist's reveille! ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... successive particulars which common sense would regard as successive states of one "thing." But the "thing" ought to be regarded as no more "real" or "substantial" than, for example, the rle of the trombone. As soon as "things" are conceived in this manner it will be found that the difficulties in the way of regarding immediate objects of sense ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... city was hung with flags and lamps. Bands played—the performers a little out of practice, because, of course, crows can't play the flute or the violin or the trombone—but the effect was very gay indeed. Then came the time—it was quite dark—when the King rose up on his throne and spoke; and Elsie, among all her new friends, listened with them ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... enthusiasm, to the time when, under the late Mr. Richard Sibthorpe’s ministrations (whose perversions and reversions between Romanism and Anglicanism were, at the least, remarkable), this gallery reverberated with the inspiring strains of the fiddle, the trombone, the hautboy, the clarionet (“harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer”), and other kinds of music, to the hearty enjoyment of all. This massive screen was the gift of a member of the collegiate body, one Robert de Whalley, in 1528. Little survives of the original choir but some stalls and sedilia. ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... was a mixed duet on the flute and trombone between Clarence Smith and Lancelot Diffenberger, with a violin obligate on ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh

... of the Corporation— And it plays on that body's pier; And one knows by the way That the instruments play, That the talent is not too dear. And the trombone is not too clear; When it has to play quick It is moistful and thick, For the trombone is fond of beer— It is nurtured ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various

... day. We'd planned a great home-comin'. No long trombone we had to play, No fine, heroic drummin'. With two sticks and a milk-can Borne Put up a martial clatter, While Carter blew a bullock-horn Says Tom Devine, with healthy scorn; "Gorstruth! ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... beginning his studies when but seven years of age, he had, mainly by his own efforts (he is in the truest sense a "self-made man"), become a thorough musician; was a superior performer on the violin, double-bass, and the cornet; a fair performer on the viola, violoncello, baritone, trombone, tuba, and piano-forte; having been besides for years an esteemed teacher of most of these instruments. Nor did his musical powers stop here; for in addition to being a skilful arranger of music for the instruments just mentioned, and others, he was ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... place of the trombone in the band I am not referring to his site or locality. That is for the conductor to settle. My purpose is to give an intelligent reply to the oft-quoted query, "Why ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various



Words linked to "Trombone" :   brass, sackbut, trombonist, brass instrument



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