sennet

plural sennets

1. historicalA series of notes blown on a cornet or trumpet, used to signal an entrance or exit in Elizabethan theatre.

   Four buglers on foot blow a sennet. Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 15: Circe]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 454

plural sennets

1. A type of West Indian fish; the barracuda.

plural sennets

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of sennit.

   Boatswain Marsham […] had placed great ropes and such cordage as headlines and marlines and sennets so that a man could lay hands on them in a time of haste and confusion.

   1923, Charles Boardman Hawes, The Dark Frigate, Chapter 8

2. alternativeobsoleteAlternative form of sennight, a sevennight, a week.

   I dranke not this sennet A draught to my pay; Elynour, I thé pray, Of thyne ale let vs assay, […]

   c. 1517 (date written; published c. 1545), John Skelton, “Here after Foloweth the Booke Called Elynour Rummynge. The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng per Skelton Laureat.”, in Alexander Dyce, editor, The Poetical Works of John Skelton: […], volume I, London: Thomas Rodd, […], published 1843, →OCLC, pages 107–108, lines 394–397