Word.ws English Dictionary

barrel-organ

barrel-organ is the alternative spelling of barrel organ.

Meaning of barrel organ

Noun

barrel organ (plural barrel organs)

  1. A musical instrument in which air from a bellows is admitted to a set of pipes by means of pins inserted into a revolving barrel (typically turned by a crank), originating in France.
    • Poor Mrs. Cranch was bulky, and, breathing asthmatically, had the additional motive for making her remarks unexceptionable and giving them a general bearing, that even her whispers were loud and liable to sudden bursts like those of a deranged barrel-organ.1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book (please specify |book=I to...

Forms of barrel-organ

pluralbarrel-organs

Questions about barrel-organ

What is barrel-organ the alternative spelling of?
Barrel-organ is the alternative spelling of barrel organ.

Words near barrel-organ in the dictionary

  1. barrel-bellied
  2. barrel-chested
  3. barrel-head
  4. barrel-heads
  5. barrel-house
  6. barrel-organ
  7. barrel-organs
  8. barrelage
  9. barrelages
  10. barrelchested
  11. barreled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: barrel-organ (page history and authors); barrel organ (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “barrel-organ.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/barrel-organ. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.