flute

Noun

flute (woodwind instrument)

flute (plural flutes)

1. (music) A woodwind instrument consisting of a tube with a row of holes that produce sound through vibrations caused by air blown across the edge of the holes, often tuned by plugging one or more holes with a finger; the Western concert flute, a transverse side-blown flute of European origin.
   • Alexander Pope

     The breathing flute's soft notes are heard around.

2. (music, colloquial) A recorder, also a woodwind instrument.
3. A glass with a long, narrow bowl and a long stem, used for drinking wine, especially champagne.
4. a lengthwise groove, such as one of the lengthwise grooves on a classical column, or a groove on a cutting tool (such as a drill bit, endmill, or reamer), which helps to form both a cutting edge and a channel through which chips can escape
5. (architecture, firearms) A semicylindrical vertical groove, as in a pillar, in plaited cloth, or in a rifle barrel to cut down the weight.
6. A long French bread roll.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Simmonds to this entry?)

7. An organ stop with a flute-like sound.

Verb

fluted pillars

flute (third-person singular simple present flutes, present participle fluting, simple past and past participle fluted)

1. (intransitive) To play on a flute.
2. (intransitive) To make a flutelike sound.
3. (transitive) To utter with a flutelike sound.
   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XIII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, OCLC 1227855:

     “Oh, there's my precious Poppet,” said Phyllis, as a distant barking reached the ears. “He's asking for his dinner, the sweet little angel. All right, darling, Mother's coming,” she fluted, and buzzed off on the errand of mercy.

4. (transitive) To form flutes or channels in (as in a column, a ruffle, etc.); to cut a semicylindrical vertical groove in (as in a pillar, etc.).

Noun

flute (plural flutes)

1. A kind of flyboat; a storeship.

Usage notes

This spelling was a product of the 1990 French spelling reforms.