▪ I. bagpipe, n.
(ˈbægpaɪp)
Forms: 4–7 baggepipe, 5–6 -pype, bagpype, 7 bagg-pipe, 6– bag-pipe, bagpipe.
[f. bag n.1 + pipe.]
1. A musical instrument of great antiquity and wide diffusion, consisting of an air-tight wind-bag and one or more reed-pipes into which the air is pressed by the performer.
Formerly a favourite rural English musical instrument; now chiefly used in the Scottish Highlands and in Ireland. The modern Highland bagpipe consists of a greased leathern bag, covered with flannel, inflated by blowing into a valved mouth-tube, and having three drones or bass pipes, and a chanter for the tenor or treble.
| c 1386 Chaucer Prol. 565 A baggepipe wel coude he blowe and soune. 1483 Cath. Angl. 17 Bagpype, panduca. 1530 Palsgr. 196/2 Bagge pype, cornemuse. 1557 Tottell's Misc. (Arb.) 197 And bagpipe, solace of the rurall bride. 1579 Spenser Sheph. Cal. Apr. 3 Or is thy Bagpype broke, that soundes so sweete? 1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, i. ii. 86 As Melancholly as..a Louers Lute..or the Drone of a Lincolnshire Bagpipe. c 1625 MS. Bodl. No. 30. 16 b, If they heare the baggepipe then the beares are coming. 1638 Heywood Witches Lanc. iii. i. Wks. 1874 IV. 217 No Witchcraft can take hold of a Lancashire Bag-pipe. 1678 Otway Friendship in F. 30 A Scotch Song! I hate it worse then a Scotch Bagpipe. 1864 Engel Mus. Anc. Nat. 78 The bag⁓pipe is also very universal throughout Asia. |
b. Now often used in pl., esp. in Scotland.
| a 1613 Overbury A Wife (1638) 175 Don Quixotes Water⁓mills are still Scotch Bagpipes to him. 1683 Tryon Way to Health 654 Bag-Pipes are under the dominion of Venus & Mars..This sort of Musick is sometimes used in Wars. 1763–5 Churchill Proph. Famine Poems I. 110 With mikle art, could on the bag pipes play. 1876 Grant Burgh Sch. Scot. ii. 380 Discoursing laments upon the Bagpipes. |
† 2. A retort shaped like a bagpipe. Obs.
| 1558 Warde Alexis' Secr. (1568) 14 b, Put it into a croke necked viole of glasse which distillars call a Bagpipe. |
3. Applied to the organ of sound of an insect.
| 1833 Brewster Nat. Magic ix. 233 The Cicadæ or locusts in North America appear..to be furnished with a bagpipe on which they play a variety of notes. |
4. fig. a. An inflated and senseless talker, a windbag. b. A long-winded monotonous speaker.
| 1603 H. Crosse Vertues Commw. (1878) 103 The Seruingman, the Image of sloath, the bagge-pipe of vanitie, like a windie Instrument, soundeth nothing but prophanenesse. 1850 Carlyle Latter-d. Pamph. v. (1872) 169 Such parliamentary bagpipes I myself have heard play tunes. 1884 Chr. World 19 June 463/4 Two fresh sermons a week..from the one poor droning theological bagpipe. |
5. Comb., as bagpipeless, without bagpipes; bagpipe-like, like a bagpipe.
| 1618 D. Belchier Hans Beere-pot E iv, Or Bagge-pype-like, not speake before thou art full. 1812 W. Tennant Anster Fair iv. lxvi, The poor pipers bagpipeless they saw. |
▪ II. ˈbagpipe, v. Naut.
[f. the n., in reference to the shape assumed by the sail.]
(See quot.)
| 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789) s.v., To bagpipe the mizen is to lay it aback, by bringing the sheet to the mizen-shrouds. |