shawm

/ʃɔːm/

Etymology

From Middle English shalmuse, from Old French chalemel (modern French chalumeau), from Late Latin calamellus, from Latin calamus (“reed”), from Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos). Doublet of caramel, chalumeau, and qalam, as well as related to calame, calamus, culm, and haulm.

shawm means A mediaeval double-reed wind instrument with a conical wooden body. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 90 out of 100.

Why this word is great

SHAWM — [Noun] A medieval double-reed wind instrument with a conical wooden body, its sound characteristically strident and carrying. From Middle English shalmuse, from Old French chalemel, from Late Latin calamellus ("little reed"), from Latin calamus ("reed, stalk"), from Ancient Greek kálamos ("reed"). Unlike the refined, keyed oboe—its descendant capable of whispered melancholy—or the capped, nasal crumhorn with its muted buzz, the shawm is an exposed nerve of sound. It is the reedy scream across a tournament field, the raw-throated announcement from a castle parapet, the rustic keening at a village festival—a voice born of wood and air, untamed by refinement, speaking always of the crowd, the open air, and the necessary distance between a signal and its recipient.

noun

A mediaeval double-reed wind instrument with a conical wooden body.“And all the field is thick with companies Of fair-clothed men that play on shawms and lutes And gather honey of the yellow fruits Between the branches waxen soft and wide”