musical instrument
- noun
- /ˈmjuːzɪkəl ˈɪnstrʊmənt/
- Many children learn to play a musical instrument in school, such as the trumpet or violin.
- play musical instruments
- learn to play musical instruments
- perform on a musical instrument
Lustre doesn't play any musical instrument at all.
- Lustre doesn't play any musical instrument at all.
- They broke into the warehouses and they stole a bunch of musical instruments like drums, right?
- So today we're going to be building a small musical instrument.
- Can you learn a musical instrument?
- Things like luxury homes, artworks, jewelry, fine wine, classic cars, musical instruments, rare books and more.
- I mean, certain when, when a musical instrument is arranged correctly, it's not like a square drum.
- It's letting the words, if they're good words, letting the words play on me like a like a musical instrument.
Examples
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He also plays a variety of musical instruments.
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The guitar has been the defining musical instrument in American popular music for the past six decades.
Academic text (2011) -
Okay, now, how many of you have played musical instruments before?
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- We have given you a musical instrument.
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We need a society for the protection of musical instruments!
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Or we play the musical instruments that we have at home and sing together.
Academic text (2013) -
Anyone who has ever played a musical instrument knows this sequence.
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The classical acoustic guitar is, in some ways, a perfect musical instrument.
Academic text (2011) -
I didn't know you played a musical instrument.
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In the music class, my child touched musical instruments; he listened to music that I didn't listen to.
Academic text (2013)
Synonyms
An object like a piano or violin that makes musical sounds
How Loud
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'an object used for producing musical sounds' is directly and compositionally derived from 'musical' (related to music) + 'instrument' (a device), following a common adjective + noun pattern. This construction is cross-linguistically regular and would be immediately understandable to an average B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Musical instrument began as a clear idea: musical means about music and instrument was an old word for a simple 'tool'. So a musical instrument is literally a 'tool' used 'to make music', which is why it now means an object that produces musical sounds.