pan-pipe
(ˈpænˌpaɪp)
Also Pan's pipe, Pan's-pipe.
[f. Pan n.2 + pipe.]
A primitive musical instrument made of a series of reeds graduated in length so as to form a scale, the upper and open ends being level, so as to permit the easy passage of the lips from one to another; its invention was ascribed by Greek legend to Pan; a syrinx, mouth-organ.
| 1820 T. Mitchell Aristoph I. p. xxxv, Olympus is generally represented, as a young man..taking lessons on the pan⁓pipe from Marsyas. 1825 Hone Every-day Bk. I. 1114 A man playing the Pan-pipes, or ‘mouth organ’. 1846 Grote Greece i. i. (1862) I. 52 Hermês surrenders to Apollo, the lyre, inventing for his own use the syrinx or panspipe. 1855 Thackeray Newcomes xlvii, At the end of the lime-tree avenue is a broken-nosed damp Faun, with a marble panpipe. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 37 The harp may be permitted in the town, and the Pan's-pipe in the fields. |