trumpeter
(ˈtrʌmpɪtə(r))
Forms: 5–6 Sc. trumpatour(e, 6 trompetor, -etter, -atere, troumpetor, trumpetor, -ettor, -etour, -ettour, -ytar, -yter, -itour, 6–7 -etter, 6– trumpeter.
[f. trumpet n. or v. + -er1, or a. F. trompeteur (Palsgr. 1530), f. trompeter to trumpet.]
1. One who sounds or plays upon a trumpet; spec. a soldier in a cavalry regiment who gives signals with a trumpet; also, one who has a similar function in a war-ship (? obs.); in quot. 1673, a herald.
| 1497 Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot. (1877) I. 326 For their Pasche reward..to Thome Pringil and his brodir trumpatouris, xxviij s. 1533 Ibid. (1905) VI. 95 To Juliane and the laif of the trumpatouris in Dunbar. 1555 Eden Decades 117 The gouernour commaunded the trumpitour to blowe a retraite. 1581 Mulcaster Positions xv. (1887) 70 Trumpetters, and those that play vpon winde instruments. 1627 Capt. Smith Seaman's Gram. viii. 35 The Trumpeter is..to attend the Captaines command, and to sound either at his going a shore, or comming aboord, at the entertainment of strangers, also when you hale a ship, when you charge, boord, or enter. 1673 Temple Let. to Dk. Florence Wks. 1731 II. 291 A Trumpeter arrived from Holland, bringing full and entire Powers to the Ambassador of Spain, to treat here of a Peace. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xvi. III. 680 A trumpeter was sent to summon the place. Ibid. xxi. IV. 654 Keyes..had formerly been trumpeter of the corps. |
2. fig. One who gives the signal for, proclaims, or extols something as by sound of trumpet.
| 1581 J. Hamilton in Cath. Tract. (S.T.S.) 84 Thir seditius trumpeters brocht hir maiestie in disdane of the peple. 1599 Broughton's Let. A ij, A clamorous trumpetor of his owne praises. 1793 Burke Policy of Allies Wks. VII. 198 Subordinate instruments and trumpeters of sedition. 1796 Grose Dict. Vulgar T. s.v., His trumpeter is dead, he is therefore forced to sound his own trumpet. 1869 Freeman Norm. Conq. (1875) III. xi. 33 Osbert, Prior of Westminster, the special trumpeter of Eadward's renown. |
3. trumpeter's muscle,
† also simply
trumpeter (
obs.)
= buccinator.
| 1615 Crooke Body of Man 754 Muscles..common to the Cheekes and the Lippes are foure, two on either side called Quadratus and Buccinator, the square muscle and the Trumpeter. 1758 J. S. Le Dran's Observ. Surg. Dict. (1771) B b ij b, Buccinator, the..Muscle of the Cheek, called the Trumpeter's Muscle. 1875 Sir. W. Turner in Encycl. Brit. I. 837/2 The buccinator..compresses the cheeks, and drives the air out of the cavity of the mouth as in playing a wind instrument; hence the name, ‘trumpeter's muscle’. |
4. Applied to
a. a braying ass (
humorous);
b. a broken-winded horse:
cf. roarer1 2.
| 1638 Sir T. Herbert Trav. (ed. 2) 133 We jogged leasurely on upon our Portugall Trumpetters,..sometimes braying out. 1785 Grose Dict. Vulgar T. s.v., The King of Spain's trumpeter, a braying ass. 1844 Stephens Bk. Farm II. 227 There are many degrees of broken wind, which receive appellations according to the noise emitted by the horse; and on this account he is called a..trumpeter. |
5. Name given to various birds, from their loud note suggesting the sound of a trumpet.
a. A variety of domestic pigeon.
b. Any species of the South American genus
Psophia or family
Psophiidæ, allied to the Cranes.
† c. ‘An obsolete name in Tasmania for the black Crow-Shrike,
Strepera fuliginosa’ (Morris
Austral Eng.).
d. = trumpeter-swan: see 7.
e. (See
quot. 1897.)
| a. 1725 Bradley's Fam. Dict. s.v. Pigeon, Many sorts of pigeons, such as..Owls, Spots, Trumpeters. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. i. (1860) 21 The trumpeter and laugher, as their names express, utter a very different coo from the other breeds. |
| b. 1747 tr. De la Condamine's Trav. S. Amer. 87 The bird called Trompetero by the Spaniards..is the same with the Agami..the noise it occasionally makes..has earned it the title of trumpeter. 1843 Penny Cycl. XXV. 317/2 Trumpeter.., the vulgar name for Psophia crepitans. 1879 E. P. Wright Anim. Life 326 The Trumpeters, or Psophiidæ, are..found only in the Great Amazon Valley. |
| c. 1827 Hellyer in Bischoff Van Diemen's L. (1832) 177 We..occasionally heard the trumpeter or black magpie. |
| d. 1891 Cent. Dict., Trumpeter... 5. The trumpeter-swan. 1899 Daily News 4 May 8/2 The cry of the Trumpeter..is..far-reaching and sonorous, and like the note of a horn. |
| e. 1897 Month Apr. 417 The Canada goose, sometimes called, from its note, the ‘trumpeter’. |
6. a. = trumpet-fish (see
trumpet n. 7). ?
Obs. b. Any species of the genus
Latris, comprising large food-fishes of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand: so called from the sound they utter when taken out of water.
| 1756 P. Browne Jamaica 441 The Trumpeter or Trumpet Fish..is frequent in the harbours of Jamaica. 1834 Van Diemen's Land Ann. 30 The most admired fish of the Island may be considered the Trumpeter. 1883 E. P. Ramsay Food Fishes N.S. Wales 13 (Fish. Exhib. Publ.) Among the best are the trumpeters (Latris), of which there are several species... The Hobart trumpeter (L. hecateia)..in a smoked and dried state forms an article of export from Tasmania to the other colonies. 1883 Roy. Comm. Fisheries Tasmania 35 (Morris) The bastard trumpeter (Latris Forsteri)..Scarcely inferior to the real trumpeter. |
7. attrib.,
esp. in names of certain birds and fishes (
cf. 5, 6):
trumpeter hornbill, an African bird of the genus
Bycanistes;
trumpeter perch, a small Australian food-fish,
Therapon cuvieri;
trumpeter swan, a large N. American species of swan,
Cygnus (
Olor)
buccinator;
trumpeter whiting, an Australian fish,
Sillago bassensis.
| 1899 F. V. Kirby Sport E.C. Africa viii. 95 In the vicinity of this Kraal the great *trumpeter hornbill abounds, his hideous cries resounding through the dense forest. Ibid. xiii. 142, I..missed two shots..at a couple of lesser trumpeter hornbills (Bycanistes buccinator). |
| 1669 Dryden Tyrannic Love iv. i, A *trumpeter-hornet to battle sounds loud. |
| 1883 E. P. Ramsay Food Fishes N.S. Wales 13 (Fish. Exhib. Publ.) The *trumpeter perch (Therapon cuvieri), was formerly very numerous in Port Jackson... It is a small, delicious fish, and prettily striped. |
| 1842 Penny Cycl. XXIII. 375/1 The *trumpeter swan, Cygnus Buccinator. 1874 J. W. Long Amer. Wild-fowl xxii. 227 The cygnus buccinator, or trumpeter swan, the largest of its kind, and most common to the valley of the Mississippi. |
| 1882 J. E. Tenison-Woods Fish N.S. Wales 65 The *trumpeter whiting (Sillago bassensis)..the most common species in Brisbane. |