bassoon

plural bassoons

1. A musical instrument in the woodwind family, having a double reed and playing in the tenor and bass ranges.

   Higher and higher every day, / Till over the mast at noon— / The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, / For he heard the loud bassoon.

   1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

   2 more examples

   The most convenient and natural order is, perhaps, the following: the upper staff may have the flute-part, because it has the highest notes, and, therefore, requires most room above the staff; then follow the parts for the hautboys, clarinets, horns, bassoons, tromboni, trumpets, and drums; the upper half of the page thus containing the wind-instruments: the lower half belongs to the violins, viola, voices, violoncello, and double base.

   1834, Arnold Merrick, transl., Methods of Harmony, Figured Base, and Composition, translation of original by Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, page 303

   After another alternation of the two elements, there is a more playful episode, in which flute and bassoon take up the first element, with swooping glissando on the ondes Martenot.

   2018, Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover's Companion to Orchestral Music, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 465

   Synonyms: fagotto

present singular third person bassoons · participle present bassooning · participle past bassooned · past bassooned

1. To play the bassoon.
2. To make a bassoon-like sound.