Forms: α. 6 fiphe, fyfe, 6– fife. β. 6–7 phi-, phyfe, -phe. [First appears in 15th c.: it is uncertain whether it is directly a. HGer. pfeife (see PIPE sb.) or a corruption of F. fifre fife, fifer (15th c. in Littré), a. OHG. pfîfâri (mod.G. pfeifer) piper, fifer, f. pfîfan to PIPE.]
1. Mus. A small shrill-toned instrument of the flute kind, used chiefly to accompany the drum in military music.
1555. Watreman, Fardle Facions, II. xi. 248. Thei [Turkes] vse a dromme and a fiphe, to assemble their Bandes.
1577. Fenton, Gold. Epist., 319. Out of little and smal phyfes, come a voice cleare and shrill.
1674. Playford, Skill Mus., Preface, 5. The valiant Souldier in Fight is animated when he hears the sound of the Trumpet, the Fife and Drum.
1710. Philips, Pastorals, v. 52.
| And sweetest songster of the winged kind, | |
| What thanks, (said he) what praises, shall I find | |
| To equal thy melodious voice? In thee | |
| The rudeness of my rural fife I see. |
1846. Grote, Greece, I. viii. (1862), II. 212. Their step was regulated by the fife, which played in martial measures peculiar to Sparta, and was employed in actual battle as well as in military practice.
b. (See quot.)
1876. Stainer & Barrett, Dict. Mus. Terms, Fife. An organ stop. A piccolo, generally of two feet in length.
2. The sound of this instrument; in quots. transf.
1617. P. Fletcher, Locusts, II. iv. And blasts with whistling fifes new rage inspire.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. xxxi.
| Yet the lark’s shrill fife may come | |
| At the day-break from the fallow, | |
| And the bittern sound his drum, | |
| Booming from the sedgy shallow. |
3. One who plays the fife; a fifer.
1548. Privy Council Acts (1890), II. 166. For one monthes wages…. For iiij drummes and two fyfes, every at xlli.
1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, II. i. 18. Instructing the Drummes and Phifes their seuerall soundes, as howe to sound a Call, a Troupe, a March swift or slowe, an Alarme, a Charge, a Retreit, &c.
1625. Markham, Souldiers Accid., 15. The Phiphes (if there be more then one) the eldest shall march with the eldest Drumme; and the second shall attend on the Ensigne.
1649. Ann. Barber-Surgeons Lond. (1890), 406. Paid to the Drumme & Phiffe—12s.
Mod. They sent the drums and fifes to drown his voice.
4. attrib., as fife-bird. Also, fife-major (Mil.), a non-commissioned officer who superintends the fifers of a regiment.
1854. Whittier, Lit. Rec. & Misc., 241. I heard a mellow gush of music from the brown-breasted fife-bird in the summer woods.
1802. James, Milit. Dict., Fife-major.
