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oboe

noun

Simple meaning

A soprano and melody wind instrument in the modern orchestra and wind ensemble.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ohboh

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈoʊboʊ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. music

    A soprano and melody wind instrument in the modern orchestra and wind ensemble. It is a smaller instrument and generally made of grenadilla wood. It is a member of the double reed family.

  2. World War II erajoint US/RAF

    Radiotelephony clear-code word for the letter O.

  3. programming

    A logic error where a value, typically the number of iterations of a loop, is specified incorrectly, being either 1 less or 1 more than it should be.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Formality
Technical

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A soprano and melody wind instrument in the modern orchestra and wind ensemble. It is a smaller instrument and generally made of grenadilla wood. It is a member of the double reed family.

Used this way, oboe is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Mild
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Music/performance
  • Arts writing
  • Family/home

Nearby words

  • hautboy , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Soprano / slender

oboe concertomodern oboeorchestral oboe

Other combinations

solo oboefirst oboeoboe playeroboe partsecond oboe

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • oboe d'amorenounCompound term

    An oboe pitched a minor third lower than the ordinary oboe.

  • oboe da caccianounCompound term

    An alto oboe.

  • basset oboenounCompound term

    An oboe pitched an octave below the ordinary oboe.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: soprano and melody wind instrument in the modern orchestra and wind ensemble. It is a smaller instrument and generally made of grenadilla wood. It is a member of the double reed family

hautboyRare

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.