saxophone
Other forms: saxophones
A saxophone is a brass instrument that you play by blowing into a mouthpiece and pressing keys to form musical notes. John Coltrane and Charlie Parker (and Lisa Simpson :) were famous saxophone players.
Saxophones are similar to instruments like clarinets, because both use a reed mouthpiece and are considered woodwinds. The saxophone, however, also qualifies as a brass instrument, like the trumpet and the tuba, since it's made out of brass and makes sound through vibrations inside the instrument's body. The word saxophone comes from Antoine Joseph Sax, the Belgian inventor of the saxophone. Sax's father, also named Sax, invented the less successful saxhorn.
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a single-reed woodwind with a conical boresynonyms: saxtype of:single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwinda beating-reed instrument with a single reed (as a clarinet or saxophone)
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Vocabulary lists containing saxophone
Learn these words that derive from the Greek root phone, meaning "sound." Here are links to the complete set of Common Senses lists: Hearing: Phon / Aud / Son Sight: Vid, Vis / Spec, Spect, Spic / Op, Ops, Opt Touch: Path / Sent, Sens / Tact, Tang
When something is named after a person or a place or a company, we call that name an eponym. If you know anyone who says "Get me a Kleenex" instead of "Get me a tissue," they are using an eponym every time they have to sneeze. Eponyms are everywhere- in science, medicine, the arts. This list focuses on words that are historically eponyms but are so common that their history of deriving from names has been obscured. In this list, the history of eponyms you didn't realize were eponyms is revealed.
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