woodwind
noun
Simple meaning
Any musical instrument that produces sound by the player blowing into it, through a reed, or across an opening.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
wuudwindSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwʊdwɪnd
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
music
Any (typically wooden) musical instrument that produces sound by the player blowing into it, through a reed, or across an opening. Woodwind instruments include the recorder, flute, piccolo, clarinet, oboe, cor anglais and bassoon.
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: Any (typically wooden) musical instrument that produces sound by the player blowing into it, through a reed, or across an opening. Woodwind instruments include the recorder, flute, piccolo, clarinet, oboe, cor anglais and bassoon.
Used this way, woodwind is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Music/performance
- Arts writing
Nearby words
- woodwind instrument , 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.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The family of woodwind instruments.
Any wind instrument other than the brass instruments.
A beating-reed instrument with a single reed (as a clarinet or saxophone).
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: any (typically wooden) musical instrument that produces sound by the player blowing into it
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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.