bigophone

English

Etymology

From Bigot +‎ -phone (after its French inventor Romain Bigot).

Noun

bigophone (plural bigophones)

1. (music) Any of a series of cheap musical instruments, made to resemble orchestral instruments, that were blown in the manner of a kazoo
   • 1978, Jan Romein, The Watershed of Two Eras: Europe in 1900, page 303:

     Elsewhere, professionals could enthuse over new precision instruments capable, for instance, of measuring weights down to a tenth of a milligram, or over a host of self-registering thermometers and barometers, microscopes, typewriters, calculators and all sorts of technical and musical devices, including automatic concertinas, edeophones, auto-harps, bigophones and other long-forgotten objects.

Translations

Translations

• French: bigophone (fr) m, bigotphone m
• Italian: bigofono m

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bi.ɡɔ.fɔn/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

bigophone m (plural bigophones)

1. (music) bigophone
2. (France, slang) telephone
   • 1959, Frédéric Dard (San-Antonio), Tout le plaisir est pour moi, Fleuve Noir, page 13:

     À l’instant où je me lève pour mettre ces modestes projets à exécution, le bigophone joue le refrain de Dring-dring et je décroche.

     The moment I get up to put these modest plans into action, the telephone plays the chorus of Ring-ring and I pick up.

Derived terms

• bigophonique
• bigophoniste

Further reading

• “bigophone”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.