bourdon
/ˈbʊɹdən/noun
bourdon is a noun meaning “The drone pipe of a bagpipe” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled B-O-U-R-D-O-N, and it appears about once in every 8 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of bourdon is bourdons.
What does bourdon mean?
noun
- 1
archaicThe burden or bass of a melody.
- 2
The drone pipe of a bagpipe.
- 3
The lowest-pitched stop of an organ.
- 4
The lowest-pitched bell of a carillon.
- 5
A large, low-pitched bell not part of a diatonically tuned ring of bells.
- 6
A bumblebee, genus Bombus.
- 7
a pilgrim's staff.
noun
- 1
A flute stop on an organ of 8', 16' or 32', generally characterized by a low, dark tone.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce bourdon?
- UK /ˈbʊədən/
- UK /ˈbɔːdən/
- US /ˈbʊɹdən/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of bourdon
- bourdons plural
- bordon
- burdon
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is bourdon?
Bourdon appears about once in every 8 million words in written English, the 83,271st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does bourdon come from?
Inherited from Middle English burdoun (“accompaniment”), from Old French bordon, from Medieval Latin burdō, burdōnem (“drone”), probably from Frankish *buʀdō (“grub, beetle, cricket, bumblebee”), related to Old English budda (“beetle”), Saterland Frisian Budde (“worm or grub used as fishbait”), Icelandic budda (“purse”). The modern pronunciation and form (for *burdon) is influenced by modern French bourdon.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).