Library / English Dictionary

TRUMPET

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A brass musical instrument with a brilliant tone; has a narrow tube and a flared bell and is played by means of valves

Synonyms:

cornet; horn; trump; trumpet

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("trumpet" is a kind of...):

brass; brass instrument (a wind instrument that consists of a brass tube (usually of variable length) that is blown by means of a cup-shaped or funnel-shaped mouthpiece)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "trumpet"):

serpent (an obsolete bass cornet; resembles a snake)

Derivation:

trumpet (play or blow on the trumpet)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Utter in trumpet-like sounds

Example:

Elephants are trumpeting

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "trumpet" is one way to...):

emit; let loose; let out; utter (express audibly; utter sounds (not necessarily words))

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sentence examples:

The birds trumpet in the woods

The woods trumpet with many kinds of birds

Derivation:

trumpeter ((formal) a person who announces important news)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Proclaim on, or as if on, a trumpet

Example:

Liberals like to trumpet their opposition to the death penalty

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "trumpet" is one way to...):

exclaim; proclaim; promulgate (state or announce)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

trumpeter ((formal) a person who announces important news)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Play or blow on the trumpet

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Hypernyms (to "trumpet" is one way to...):

play (perform music on (a musical instrument))

"Trumpet" entails doing...:

blow (exhale hard)

Domain category:

music (musical activity (singing or whistling etc.))

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

trumpet (a brass musical instrument with a brilliant tone; has a narrow tube and a flared bell and is played by means of valves)

trumpeter (a musician who plays the trumpet or cornet)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Never had I so much care since first I blew trumpet and showed cartel at the west gate of Southampton.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Then the fisherman went home; and as he came close to the palace he saw a troop of soldiers, and heard the sound of drums and trumpets.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I was struck with the utmost fear and astonishment, and ran to hide myself in the corn, whence I saw him at the top of the stile looking back into the next field on the right hand, and heard him call in a voice many degrees louder than a speaking-trumpet: but the noise was so high in the air, that at first I certainly thought it was thunder.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Helen Della Delmar (proclaimed with a flourish of trumpets and rolling of tomtoms to be the greatest woman poet in the United States) denied Brissenden a seat beside her on Pegasus and wrote voluminous letters to the public, proving that he was no poet.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

As for Jo, she would have gone up and sat on the maintop jib, or whatever the high thing is called, made friends with the engineers, and tooted on the captain's speaking trumpet, she'd have been in such a state of rapture.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

And she began a scene between the two of them, so exact in voice and manner that it seemed to us as if there were really two folk before us: the stern old mother with her hand up like an ear-trumpet, and her flouncing, bouncing daughter.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I seem to hear a hundred trumpets, all calling in chorus.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Of course they had heard Lucy speak of me, and it seemed that Dr. Van Helsing, too, has been quite "blowing my trumpet," as Mr. Morris expressed it.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Their outward garments were adorned with the figures of suns, moons, and stars; interwoven with those of fiddles, flutes, harps, trumpets, guitars, harpsichords, and many other instruments of music, unknown to us in Europe.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)