† cornemuse Obs.
Forms: 4, 9 cornemuse, 5 cormyse, cormuse, cornymuse, 6–7 cornamuse, 7 cornimuse, (cornamute), 9 (cornamouse).
[a. F. cornemuse, also dial. cormuse, -meuse, = Pr., Sp., It., med.L. cornamusa, f. Romanic corna, F. corne horn + musa pipe.]
A horn-pipe; an early form of the bagpipe.
| c 1384 Chaucer H. Fame iii. 128 That maden lowde menstralcies In cornemuse and shalmyes. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. vi. xxiii. (1495) 213 He herde the symphony and cornemuse. c 1430 Lydg. Min. Poems (Percy Soc.) 200 There is no bagpipe halff so talle, Nor no cormyse, for sothe as I ween, Whan they been ful of wynde at alle. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 93 Cormuse, pype [1499 cornymuse] cormusa. 1591 Percivall Sp. Dict., Cornamusa, a cornamuse, a hornepipe, fistula. 1612 Drayton Poly-olb. iv. 63 Euen from the shrillest Shawme vnto the Cornamute. 1623 Lisle ælfric on O. & N. Test. Ded. p. ii, Ancient Heardmen heretofore did vse Sometime the high notes of their Cornamuse. 1869 F. B. Palliser Brittany 249 The Birnou, Cornemuse or Bagpipe is the national instrument of Western and Southern France. 1882 Blackw. Mag. Aug. 173 Long before the cornamouse (father of the bagpipe) sent its execrable Sclavic notes up the Highland straths. |