Flute

How to spell flute

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce flute

What does flute mean?

1. nounA high-pitched woodwind instrument played by blowing across a hole while the player holds it sideways.
2. nounA tall, narrow stemmed glass used for serving champagne or sparkling wine.
3. nounA long, rounded vertical groove carved into the shaft of a column or pillar.

Flute in a sentence

• She practised the flute for an hour before the recital.

• Each guest received a chilled flute of champagne at the door.

• Each flute on the stone column had been worn smooth over centuries.

• The orchestra needed a second flute for the symphony.

• She raised her flute to toast the newlyweds.

• The architect specified a shallow flute down the side of the pilaster.

Where does flute come from?

Language of origin: French

The word arrived in English in the late 1300s from Old French flaute or fleute, the name for the wind instrument, and the trail leads further back to Old Provencal flaut. Beyond that the origin becomes genuinely murky; one common idea is that it grew from a blend of Latin flare, meaning 'to blow', with laudare, meaning 'to praise', though scholars do not all agree. What is clear is that the early forms wandered widely in spelling, appearing as flowte, floute, and floyte before settling. The modern look, with its silent final 'e' and a long 'u' written 'u', mirrors the French shape rather than an English phonetic spelling, which is why the vowel sounds like 'oo' yet is not written that way. The same instrument-name root later spread into related senses, so the tall champagne glass and the grooves carved into a column both borrowed the word because of their slender, hollowed shape.

How the word is built

• flute (whole word, from Old French flaute/fleute, an instrument name; no separable affixes)