Forms: 6 violine, 7 vyoline, viallin, 7– violin. [ad. It. violino (Pg. violino, Sp. violin), f. viola VIOLA2. Cf. VIOLON.]
1. A musical instrument in common use, having four strings tuned in fifths and played with a bow; a fiddle.
In general structure the violin is composed of a resonant box of elaborately curved outline, and a neck or handle from the end of which the strings are stretched over a bridge to a tail-piece.
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., April 103. I see Calliope speede her to the place, where my Goddesse shines: And after her the other Muses trace, with their Violines.
1589. R. Harvey, Pl. Perc. (1590), 6. Then were it high time for … all Peace-Makers, to put vp their pipes, or else in steed of the soft violine, learne to sound a shrill trumpet.
1608. B. Jonson, Masques, Wks. (1616), 964. The first [dance] was to the Cornets, the second to the Vyolines.
1618. Bolton, Florus (1636), 115. Some excellently pleasing lesson plaid upon soft winde instruments, or Violins.
1660. Pepys, Diary, 6 March. I played upon a viall, and he a viallin, after dinner.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 258, ¶ 4. Violins, Voices, or any other Organs of Sound.
1756–7. trans. Keysler’s Trav. (1760), II. 10. Orpheus or Amphion in bronze, playing upon a violin.
1842. Lytton, Zanoni, I. i. He was not only a composer, but also an excellent practical performer, especially on the violin.
1884. Haweis, My Musical Life, I. 237. The violin is not an invention, it is a growth.
transf. 1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy, 62. People … presently phansi’d the Moon, Mercury, and Venus to be a kind of violins or trebles to Jupiter and Saturn.
b. With distinguishing terms.
1601. B. Jonson, Poetaster, III. iv. Come, we must haue you turne fiddler againe, slaue, ’get a base violin at your backe.
c. 1670. Wood, Life (O.H.S.), I. 212. Before the restoration of K. Charles 2 and especially after, viols began to be out of fashion, and only violins used, as treble-violin, tenor and bass-violin.
1685. Playford (title), The Division-Violin: containing a Collection of Divisions upon several Grounds for the Treble-Violin.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., The Word Violin, alone, stands for Treble Violin. Ibid., The Counter-Tenor, Tenor, or Bass-Violin.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 245/1. The tenor violin, in compass a fifth lower than the treble violin, appears to have preceded the latter.
c. To play first violin, to take the leading part. (Cf. FIDDLE sb. 1 b.)
1780. Mme. D’Arblay, Diary, May. [He] seemed to think nobody half so great as himself, and … chose to play first-violin without further ceremony.
2. One who plays on the violin; a violinist.
1667. Pepys, Diary, 20 Feb. They talked how the King’s viallin, Bannister, is mad.
c. 1670. Wood, Life (O.H.S.), I. 485. Thomas Baltzar, one of the violins in the king’s service.
1699. J. Jackson, Lett. to Pepys, 25 Dec. Corelli the famous violin playing, in concert with above 30 more.
1843. Penny Cycl., XXVI. 346/2. At the early age of twenty he was chosen to fill the situation of first violin in the royal chapel of Turin.
1878. Miss Fothergill (title), The First Violin.
3. A variety of organ-stop. rare–1.
1688. [see VIOL sb.1 3].
4. attrib. and Comb., as violin-bow, -case, class, family, etc.; violin-maker, -making, -player; violin-like, -shaped adjs.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, *Violin-bow, a bow strung with horse-hair, for playing on a violin.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2711/1. The Hindus claim to have invented the violin-bow.
1685. Lond. Gaz., No. 2041/4. Lost…, a black Leather *Violin-Case, with a Violin in it.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, xxxiv. She might as well have been dressed in a violin-case.
1864. Engel, Mus. Anc. Nat., 86. Two other Hindoo instruments … belonging to the *violin class.
1876. Stainer & Barrett, Dict. Mus. Terms, 449/1. *Violin clef, the G clef placed upon the first line of the stave.
1865. J. Hullah, Transition Period Music, 34. Of these instruments it would easily be found that incomparably the most important were the *Violin family.
1837. Penny Cycl., VIII. 198/1. Cruth,… a musical instrument of the *violin kind.
1884. ‘Edna Lyall,’ We Two, xix. *Violin-like sensitiveness of nature.
1683. Lond. Gaz., No. 1862/8. Mr. Aguttar, *Violin-Maker in the Strand.
1843. Penny Cycl., XXVI. 346. The same author [M. Otto] also gives the names of many German violin-makers.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2711/2. Antonio Stradivarius … stands, by common consent, at the head of all violin-makers. Ibid., The art of *violin-making … appears to have reached its culminating point in the productions of the Cremonese school.
1861. J. S. Adams, 5000 Mus. Terms, 108. Conde vuide, in *violin music, indicates the open string.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2712/1. *Violin-piano,… a form of the pianoforte patented … in England by Todd.
1865. Baring-Gould, Were-wolves, ix. 137. A *violin-player, who … confessed to thirty-four murders.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 242/2, note. *Violin rosin is called in French colophane.
1862. Catal. Internat. Exhib., Brit., II. No. 5438. *Violin school for joint practice of the elementary and advanced classes.
1802. R. Hall, Elem. Bot., 158. Panduriform, panduriformis, *violin-shaped.
1841. Spalding, Italy & It. Isl., III. 160. Among the manufactures, those of the fine arts, leather, and *violin-strings, are alone industriously practised.
1871. trans. Schellen’s Spectr. Anal., App. 433. The motion of a point near the end of a violin string.
1884. Thompson, Tumours of Bladder, 82. A very small écraseur, with violin-string ligature.
1843. Penny Cycl., XXVI. 346. A lyre, or lute,… may be considered … as the parent of all instruments of the *violin tribe.
