Art & MusicGreek → English
Saxophone
/ˈsæksəfoʊn/noun
A keyed metal wind instrument played with a single reed, built in several sizes.
The Greek roots
φωνή
phōnḗ
voice, sound
Literally: “Sax's sound”
Follow a root:φωνή23 words
The story of the word
Adolphe Sax patented the instrument in Paris in 1846, and the name welds his Belgian surname onto the Greek word for sound. Purists have always disliked the hybrid and everyone else has used it. Sax also built the saxhorn and the saxotromba, neither of which lasted. Berlioz and Bizet were writing for the thing decades before jazz ever picked it up.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
telephonemegaphonesymphonyxylophone
In a sentence
He took up the saxophone at forty and the neighbours took up complaining.