musette

/mjuːˈzɛt/

Etymology

From both of the following: * Late Middle English musette (“type of bagpipe”), from Middle French musette, Old French musette (“type of bagpipe”) (modern French musette), from muse (“bagpipe”) + -ette (diminutive suffix). Muse is derived from muser (“to play the bagpipe; (figuratively) to flatter”), perhaps from musel (“muzzle (protruding part of an animal’s head)”) (alluding to a bagpipe player puffing out the cheeks), from Late Latin mūsus (“muzzle”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps expressive of protruding lips and/or influenced by Latin mūgiō (“to bellow, low, moo”), from Proto-Indo-European *mug-, *mūg- (onomatopoeia of the lowing of cattle). * Borrowed from French musette in the 18th century. Sense 2 (“small bag or knapsack with a shoulder strap”) is due to the resemblance of th

Why this word is great

MUSETTE — [Noun] A small, soft-sounding bagpipe, often with a bellows, popular in 17th- and 18th-century France, or a pastoral tune or dance imitating its sound. From Middle French musette, Old French musette ("type of bagpipe"), from muse ("bagpipe") + -ette (diminutive suffix), with muse possibly derived from muser ("to play the bagpipe"), influenced by musel ("muzzle"), from Late Latin mūsus ("muzzle"). Unlike the uilleann pipes (which sprawl across octaves with intricate fingering) or the pastorale (which paints pastoral scenes in broad strokes), the musette is a pocket-sized idyll, a rustic daydream compressed into reeds and air. It is the wheeze of sheepskin under a shepherd’s arm, the hum of bees in a sunlit meadow, the distant, reedy echo of a dance in some forgotten village square—a sound so small and fleeting it seems to dissolve into the air, leaving only the memory of something pastoral and half-imagined.

noun

Any of various small bagpipes having a soft sound, especially with a bellows, which were popular in France in the 17th and early 18th century.
Any of various small bagpipes having a soft sound, especially with a bellows, which were popular in France in the 17th and early 18th century.; A pastoral air or tune that has a drone imitating such an instrument; also, a dance performed to this music.
An organ stop using reed pipes with cone-shaped resonators, found in organs in France in the 17th and 18th centuries.
A small oboe without a cap for its reed, which evolved from the chanter or pipe of bagpipes; a piccolo oboe.
In full musette bag: a small bag or knapsack with a shoulder strap, formerly used by soldiers, and now (cycling) chiefly by cyclists to hold food and beverages or other items.“The young gentleman had a musette over his shoulder.”