Also 6 famphar, 7 erroneously farfara. [Fr. fanfare perhaps an echoic word.] A flourish, call, or short tune, sounded by trumpets, bugles, or hunting-horns.
1769. Grassineau, Mus. Dict., App. 20 (T.), Fanfare, [is] a sort of military air or flourish … performed by trumpets, and imitated by other instruments.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., xi. Amid the fanfare of the trumpets.
1863. Longf., The Falcon of Ser Federigo, 221. With Fanfares by aërial trumpets blown.
1887. Grove, Dict. Mus., IV. 470. They [horns] were used … for playing merry fanfares … when the huntsmen … returned home.
b. transf. and fig.
a. 1605. Montgomery, Welcome to Ld. Semple, 40.
| My trompet, to, sall sound | |
| The famphar of thy fame. |
1628. Le Grys, trans. Barclay’s Argenis, 159. From the walles they heard the noyse of men, almost such, as if they had been celebrating the Feast of Bacchus, and that the Countrey round about did ring with the farfaras of Drummes and Trumpets.
1676. Temple, Lett. to King, Wks. 1731, II. 425. After all his Fanfares about a separate Peace.
1878. L. W. M. Lockhart, Mine is Thine, II. xxiv. 130. The harsh fanfares of forced laughter.
Hence Fanfare v. intr., to sound a fanfare.
1860. Russell, Diary India, II. xiii. 253. As we moved on the trumpets fanfared, the drums rattled, [etc.].
