Sax

How to spell sax

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce sax

What does sax mean?

1. nounAn informal name for the saxophone, a single-reed woodwind instrument.

Sax in a sentence

• He played a smooth solo on his sax during the jazz set.

• The band needed a tenor sax to fill out the brass section.

Where does sax come from?

Language of origin: French

This little word is a casual shortening of 'saxophone', the brass woodwind instrument patented in the 1840s by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian instrument maker working in Paris. The full name was coined by joining his surname Sax to the Greek element 'phone', meaning 'sound' or 'voice', so the instrument literally means 'Sax's sound'. Musicians and fans had clipped the long word down to the breezy 'sax' by the early twentieth century, as jazz made the instrument famous. The spelling keeps the unusual final 'x' from the inventor's name, which is what separates it in writing from its homophone 'sacks'. Curiously, the same surname also lies behind the 'saxhorn' family of instruments, another of Sax's inventions.

How the word is built

• sax (clipped from 'saxophone', itself named after the inventor Adolphe Sax)