Obs. Forms: 4, 9 cornemuse, 5 cormyse, cormuse, cornymuse, 6–7 cornamuse, 7 cornimuse, (cornamute), 9 (cornamouse). [a. F. cornemuse, also dial. cormuse, -meuse, = Pr., Sp., It., med.L. cornamusa, f. Romanic corna, F. corne horn + musa pipe.] A horn-pipe; an early form of the bagpipe.
c. 1384. Chaucer, H. Fame, III. 128. That maden lowde menstralcies In cornemuse and shalmyes.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VI. xxiii. (1495), 213. He herde the symphony and cornemuse.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems (Percy Soc.), 200. There is no bagpipe halff so talle, Nor no cormyse, for sothe as I ween, Whan they been ful of wynde at alle.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 93. Cormuse, pype [1499 cornymuse] cormusa.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Cornamusa, a cornamuse, a hornepipe, fistula.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., IV. 63. Euen from the shrillest Shawme vnto the Cornamute.
1623. Lisle, Ælfric on O. & N. Test., Ded. p. ii.
| But ancient Heard-men heretofore did vse | |
| Sometime the high notes of their Cornamuse. |
1869. Mrs. Palliser, Brittany, 249. The biniou, cornemuse, or bagpipe, is the national instrument of western and southern France.
1882. Blackw. Mag., Aug., 173/2. Long before the cornamouse (father of the bagpipe) sent its execrable Sclavic notes up the Highland straths.
