Etymology

furniture music

Today it means: Background music originally played by live performers. Full definition →

French musique d'ameublement
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The story

  1. French · calque ofmusique d'ameublement
  2. English todayfurniture music

Calque of French musique d'ameublement (literally “furnishing music”), coined by Erik Satie in 1917.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.