Word.ws English Dictionary

hautboys

hautboys is the plural of hautboy.

Meaning of hautboy

Noun

hautboy (plural hautboys)

  1. (dated) An oboe or similar treble double reed instrument.
    • I […] told John a Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court […]c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […]...
  2. A reed stop on an organ giving a similar sound.
  3. A tall-growing strawberry, Fragaria elatior, having a musky flavor.
    • In May we have strawberries, which continue in season two or three months. These are of the wood kind; very grateful, and of a good flavour; but the scarlets and hautboys are not known at Nice.1766, Tobias Smollett, Travels through France and Italy, London: R. Baldwin, Volume 1, Letter 19, pp. 304-305

Questions about hautboys

What is hautboys the plural of?
Hautboys is the plural of hautboy.

Words near hautboys in the dictionary

  1. hautboist
  2. hautboists
  3. hautboy
  4. hautboyist
  5. hautboyists
  6. hautboys
  7. haute
  8. haute bourgeoisie
  9. haute bourgeoisies
  10. haute couture
  11. haute cuisine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hautboys (page history and authors); hautboy (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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