a. Obs. rare. [ad. L. flābil-is, f. flāre to blow.] Of musical instruments: Played upon by blowing; wind-. Also transf.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Flabile, easily blown.
1728. R. North, Mem. Musick (1846), 24–. These [instruments] were either flabile or nervous; the former were either trumpets (tuba), tibia, or fistula, and the other divers sorts of harps. Ibid., 78. As for corporation and mercenary musick, it was cheifly [sic] flabile, and the professors, from going about the streets in a morning, to wake folks, were, and are yet, called Waits, quasi Wakes.
