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Webster 1913 Edition


Pibroch

Pi′broch

,
Noun.
[Gael.
piobaireachd
pipe music, fr.
piobair
a piper, fr.
pioba
pipe, bagpipe, from English. See
Pipe
,
Noun.
]
A Highland air, suited to the particular passion which the musician would either excite or assuage; generally applied to those airs that are played on the bagpipe before the Highlanders when they go out to battle.
Jamieson.

Webster 1828 Edition


Pibroch

PI'BROCH

,
Noun.
A wild irregular species of music, peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland. It is performed on a bagpipe, and adapted to excite or assuage passion, and particularly to rouse a martial spirit among troops going to battle.

Definition 2024


pibroch

pibroch

English

Alternative forms

Noun

pibroch (plural pibrochs)

  1. A series of musical variations for the bagpipes, usually martial or funerary in nature.
    • 1908, E. G. Murphy, ‘The Doctor's Story’, Australian Ballads & Short Stories, Penguin 2003, p. 279:
      He had heard the stirring pibrochs speed the Gordons in their fights, / It had borne them through the fire zone as they swung up Dargai's heights [...].
    • 2012, Hannah Rosefield, ‘Piping Up’, Literary Review, 401:
      Halfway through The Big Music, Kirsty Gunn notes that piobaireachd, a particular form of bagpipe composition, sounds ‘foreign and strange’ to those not raised on it.