Word.ws English Dictionary

octobass

octobass noun: a very large bass requiring two musicians, one to finger and one to bow.

octobass: a very large bass requiring two musicians, one to finger and one to bow
Image: fr:Ratigan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

octobass (plural octobasses)

  1. A very large bass requiring two musicians, one to finger and one to bow.

Forms of octobass

pluraloctobasses

Origin of octobass

From octo- + bass. The name "octobass" comes from "octo-" meaning "eight" in Latin and "-bass", which is general name for any bass instrument (like "double bass", "contrabass" etc.). "Octo" is used because its range extending more than an octave below that of the double bass - it is tuned to A0, compared to the C1 that a double bass can stretch to, which makes octobass the lowest chordophone ever created.

Words formed from octobass

Questions about octobass

What does octobass mean?
Octobass means a very large bass requiring two musicians, one to finger and one to bow.
What part of speech is octobass?
Octobass is a noun.
What is the plural of octobass?
The plural of octobass is octobasses.

Words near octobass in the dictionary

  1. octoad
  2. octoads
  3. octoalloy
  4. octoate
  5. octoates
  6. octobass
  7. octobasses
  8. octobassist
  9. octobassists
  10. October
  11. October 7

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: octobass (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.

Last updated:

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