Meanings
- uncountableentertainmentBackground music originally played by live performers.
Furniture music is thus more like a chair than a painting in a gallery. One sits in rather than contemplates the chair. So too furniture music: “it creates vibration; it has no other purpose; it fills the same role as light, warmth and comfort in all its forms.”
2018, John T. Lysaker, Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 84
Origin
- Frenchmusique d'ameublement
- Englishfurniture music
Calque of French musique d'ameublement (literally “furnishing music”), coined by Erik Satie in 1917.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
furniture music. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/furniture%20music
“furniture music.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/furniture%20music. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “furniture music,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/furniture%20music.
Source: furniture music on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.