Trumpeter

Forms: 5–6 Sc. trumpatour(e, 6 trompetor, -etter, -atere, troumpetor, trumpetor, -ettor, -etour, -ettour, -ytar, -yter, -itour, 6–7 -etter, 6– trumpeter. [f. TRUMPET sb. or v. + -ER¹, or a. F. trompeteur (Palsgr., 1530), f. trompeter to TRUMPET.]

  1.  One who sounds or plays upon a trumpet; spec. a soldier in a cavalry regiment who gives signals with a trumpet; also, one who has a similar function in a war-ship (? obs.); in quot. 1673, a herald.

1497.  Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot. (1877), I. 326. For their Pasche reward … to Thome Pringil and his brodir trumpatouris, xxviij s. Ibid. (1533), (1905), VI. 95. To Juliane and the laif of the trumpatouris in Dunbar.

1555.  Eden, Decades, 117. The gouernour commaunded the trumpitour to blowe a retraite.

1581.  Mulcaster, Positions, xv. (1887), 70. Trumpetters, and those that play vpon winde instruments.

1627.  Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., viii. 35. The Trumpeter is … to attend the Captaines command, and to sound either at his going a shore, or comming aboord, at the entertainment of strangers, also when you hale a ship, when you charge, boord, or enter.

1673.  Temple, Lett. to Dk. Florence, Wks. 1731, II. 291. A Trumpeter arrived from Holland, bringing full and entire Powers to the Ambassador of Spain, to treat here of a Peace.

1855.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xvi. III. 680. A trumpeter was sent to summon the place. Ibid., xxi. IV. 654. Keyes … had formerly been trumpeter of the corps.

  2.  fig. One who gives the signal for, proclaims, or extols something as by sound of trumpet.

1581.  J. Hamilton, in Cath. Tract. (S.T.S.), 84. Thir seditius trumpeters brocht hir maiestie in disdane of the peple.

1599.  Broughton’s Lett., A ij. A clamorous trumpetor of his owne praises.

1793.  Burke, Policy of Allies, Wks. VII. 198. Subordinate instruments and trumpeters of sedition.

1796.  Grose, Dict. Vulgar T., s.v., His trumpeter is dead, he is therefore forced to sound his own trumpet.

1869.  Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1875), III. xi. 33. Osbert, Prior of Westminster, the special trumpeter of Eadward’s renown.

  3.  Trumpeter’s muscle, † also simply trumpeter (obs.) = BUCCINATOR.

1615.  Crooke, Body of Man, 754. Muscles … common to the Cheekes and the Lippes are foure, two on either side called Quadratus and Buccinator, the square muscle and the Trumpeter.

1758.  J. S., Le Dran’s Observ. Surg., Dict. (1771), B b ij b. Buccinator, the … Muscle of the Cheek, called the Trumpeter’s Muscle.

1875.  Sir W. Turner, in Encycl. Brit., I. 837/2. The buccinator … compresses the cheeks, and drives the air out of the cavity of the mouth as in playing a wind instrument; hence the name, ‘trumpeter’s muscle.’

  4.  Applied to a. a braying ass (humorous); b. a broken-winded horse: cf. ROARER¹ 2.

1638.  Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (ed. 2), 133. We joggd leasurely on upon our Portugall Trumpetters,… sometimes braying out.

1785.  Grose, Dict. Vulgar T., s.v., The King of Spain’s trumpeter, a braying ass.

1844.  Stephens, Bk. Farm, II. 227. There are many degrees of broken wind, which receive appellations according to the noise emitted by the horse; and on this account he is called a … trumpeter.

  5.  Name given to various birds, from their loud note suggesting the sound of a trumpet. a. A variety of domestic pigeon. b. Any species of the South American genus Psophia or family Psophiidæ, allied to the Cranes. † c. ‘An obsolete name in Tasmania for the black Crow-Shrike, Strepera fuliginosa’ (Morris, Austral Eng.). d. = trumpeter-swan: see 7. e. (See quot. 1897.)

  a.  1725.  Bradley’s Faw. Dict., s.v. Pigeon, Many sorts of pigeons, such as … Owls, Spots, Trumpeters.

1859.  Darwin, Orig. Spec., i. (1860), 21. The trumpeter and laugher, as their names express, utter a very different coo from the other breeds.

  b.  1747.  trans. De la Condamine’s Trav. S. Amer., 87. The bird called Trompetero by the Spaniards … is the same with the Agami … the noise it occasionally makes … has earned it the title of trumpeter.

1843.  Penny Cycl., XXV. 317/2. Trumpeter…, the vulgar name for Psophia crepitans.

1879.  E. P. Wright, Anim. Life, 326. The Trumpeters, or Psophiidæ, are … found only in the Great Amazon Valley.

  c.  1827.  Hellyer, in Bischoff, Van Diemen’s L. (1832), 177. We … occasionally heard the trumpeter or black magpie.

  d.  1891.  Cent. Dict., Trumpeter.… 5. The trumpeter-swan.

1889.  Daily News, 4 May, 8/2. The cry of the Trumpeter … is … far-reaching and sonorous, and like the note of a horn.

  e.  1897.  Month, LXXXIX. April, 417. The Canada goose, sometimes called, from its note, the ‘trumpeter.’

  6.  a. = trumpet-fish (see TRUMPET sb. 7). ? Obs. b. Any species of the genus Latris, comprising large food-fishes of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand: so called from the sound they utter when taken out of water.

1756.  P. Browne, Jamaica, 441. The Trumpeter or Trumpet Fish … is frequent in the harbours of Jamaica.

1834.  Van Diemen’s Land Ann., 39. The most admired fish of the Island may be considered the Trumpeter.

1883.  E. P. Ramsay, Food Fishes N. S. Wales, 13 (Fish. Exhib. Publ.). Among the best are the trumpeters (Latris), of which there are several species…. The Hobart trumpeter (L. hecateia) … in a smoked and dried state forms an article of export from Tasmania to the other colonies.

1883.  Roy. Comm. Fisheries Tasmania, 35 (Morris). The bastard trumpeter (Latris Forsteri) … Scarcely inferior to the real trumpeter.

  7.  attrib., esp. in names of certain birds and fishes (cf. 5, 6): trumpeter hornbill, an African bird of the genus Bycanistes; trumpeter perch, a small Australian food-fish, Therapon cuvieri; trumpeter swan, a large N. American species of swan, Cygnus (Olor) buccinator; trumpeter whiting, an Australian fish, Sillago bassensis.

1899.  F. V. Kirby, Sport E. C. Africa, viii. 95. In the vicinity of this Kraal the great *trumpeter hornbill abounds, his hideous cries resounding through the dense forest. Ibid., xiii. 142. I … missed two shots … at a couple of lesser trumpeter hornbills (Bycanistes buccinator).

1669.  Dryden, Tyrannic Love, IV. i. A *trumpeter-hornet to battle sounds loud.

1883.  E. P. Ramsay, Food Fishes N. S. Wales, 13 (Fish. Exhib. Publ.). The *trumpeter perch (Therapon cuvieri), was formerly very numerous in Port Jackson…. It is a small, delicious fish, and prettily striped.

1842.  Penny Cycl., XXIII. 375/1. The *trumpeter swan, Cygnus Buccinator.

1874.  J. W. Long, Amer. Wild-fowl, xxii. 227. The cygnus buccinator, or trumpeter swan, the largest of its kind, and most common to the valley of the Mississippi.

1882.  Tenison-Woods, Fish N.S. Wales, 65. The *trumpeter whiting (Sillago bassensis) … the most common species in Brisbane.