bagpipes

UK/ˈbæɡˌpaɪps/US/ˈbæɡˌpaɪps/

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,575 of 15,258neutral

Bagpipes are a wind instrument with a bag of air and droning pipes. Play the bagpipes, the skirl of the bagpipes, a set of bagpipes.

The bag lets the player breathe without breaking the sound, which is why the note never stops. The drones hold one pitch while the chanter carries the tune. They are Scottish in reputation but versions are played from Spain to Turkey.

Definitions of bagpipes

1nounbagpipesA wind instrument with a bag of air and droning pipes.B2+
“A piper in a kilt played the bagpipes as the bride walked into the church.”

bagpipes is an instrument.

Where it comes from

Bag plus pipes, recorded in Middle English. The instrument is far older than the English name for it.

Middle English
bagpipe
English, today
bagpipes

From earlier bagpipe, from Middle English bagpipe; equivalent to bag + pipes.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Music & Instruments

Practise this word

bagpipes in the wild

The term bagpipes is also used, though pipers usually refer to the bagpipes as "the pipes", "a set of pipes" or "a stand of pipes".
Bagpipes
The tone of the uilleann pipes is unlike that of many other forms of bagpipes.
Uilleann pipes
Through development over the centuries, the great Highland bagpipes probably reached something like their distinctive modern form in the 18th century.
Great Highland bagpipe
Swedish bagpipes are a variety of bagpipes from Sweden.
Swedish bagpipes
Cornish bagpipes (Cornish: Pibow sagh kernewek) are the forms of bagpipes once common in Cornwall in the 19th century.
Cornish bagpipes

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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