zurla, n.

zurla
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zurla_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
First published 1986; not fully revised

# zurlanoun

## Earlier version

- zurla in OED Second Edition (1989)

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zurla mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun zurla. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

#### Entry status

OED is undergoing a continuous programme of revision to modernize and improve definitions. This entry has not yet been fully revised.

### How common is the noun zurla?

Fewer than 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

1940 | 0.0018
1950 | 0.0016
1960 | 0.0015
1970 | 0.0014
1980 | 0.0016
1990 | 0.0008
2000 | 0.0009
2010 | 0.001

### How is the noun zurla pronounced?

#### British English

/ˈzʊələ/

### Where does the noun zurla come from?

Earliest known use

1940s

The earliest known use of the noun zurla is in the 1940s.

OED's earliest evidence for zurla is from 1940, in the writing of Curt Sachs.

zurla is a borrowing from Croatian.

### Nearby entries

1. Zuluize, v. 1852–
2. Zulu time, n. 1959–
3. zumbador, n. 1758–64
4. zumbi, n. 1704–
5. zumboorukchee, n. 1840–
6. Zuñi, n. 1834–
7. zunyite, n. 1885–
8. zuppa, n. 1961–
9. Zurich, n. 1870–
10. Zuricher, n. 1673–
11. zurla, n.1940–
12. zurlite, n. 1826–
13. zurna, n. 1870–
14. zurr, n. 1803–
15. zussmanite, n. 1965–
16. zut, int. 1915–
17. zuur-veldt, n. 1785–
18. zuz, n. 1688–
19. zwanziger, n. 1828–
20. Zweig, n. 1973–
21. zwieback, n. 1894–

## Etymology

### Summary

A borrowing from Croatian.
Croatian, < zurna n.

## Meaning & use

Music.

1. 1940–
   A kind of shawm similar to the Turkish zurna, introduced into Macedonia and neighbouring Balkan states by Romani peoples.
   1. 1940

      > When the drums join in, the two larger oboes accompany the sibs in the lower octave. This must be an old custom, for the same is true for the Turkish oboes surle played by Croatian gypsies.

      C. Sachs, History of Musical Instruments (1942) xiii. 249
   2. 1953

      > We may assume that the Persian word zurnâ is the root from which zurna, zurne, zurla and surla were derived.

      Y. Arbatsky, Beating Tupan in Central Balkans 4
   3. 1957

      > We have only the notion, based on general historical grounds, that the parent instrument of the staple-bearing kind is the Middle Eastern shawm surna, a variety of which, frequently heard at our folk~dance festival, is the Macedonian zurla.

      A. C. Baines, Woodwind Instruments & their History ix. 229
   4. 1962

      > The Gypsies in Balkan countries used, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the following musical instruments: tambourine, cymbalum, drum and zurla (a wind-instrument of Oriental origin).

      Journal Gypsy Lore Society vol. 41 43
   5. 1975

      > The facts suggest that the modern Turkish shawm represents a development independent of the shawms of Western Europe. The two types co-exist today in Yugoslavia, where the zurla has a ‘head’ comparable with that of Anatolian and Thracian zurna.

      L. Picken, Folk Musical Instruments of Turkey iv. 499
   6. 1975

      > To group (b) belong the shawms-with-finger-holes of Macedonia, both those of Yugoslavia—zurla..and those of Greece—zourná.

      L. Picken, Folk Musical Instruments of Turkey iv. 500
   music
   1. shawm c1350–
      A medieval musical instrument of the oboe class, having a double reed enclosed in a globular mouthpiece.
   2. shalle c1407–26
      = shawm, n.
   3. doucine 1686–
      An ornamental moulding consisting of a continuous double curve, S-shaped in cross-section, with the upper part concave and the lower part convex.
   4. tarogato 1907–
      A Hungarian woodwind instrument with a conical bore, originally a double-reeded instrument resembling a shawm, but in the 1880s reconstructed with a…
   5. rauschpfeife 1937–
      A reed-cap shawm of the Renaissance period.
   6. schreierpfeife 1939–
      A musical instrument of the variety collectively known as schryari, n.
   7. schryari 1939–
      With plural and singular agreement. A variety of wooden double-reed wind instrument used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and recently…
   8. zurla 1940–
      A kind of shawm similar to the Turkish zurna, introduced into Macedonia and neighbouring Balkan states by Romani peoples.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/ˈzʊələ/

####

##### Consonants

- ppea
- ttea
- kkey
- bbuy
- ddye
- ɡguy
- tʃchore
- dʒjay
- ffore
- θthaw
- ssore
- ʃshore
- vvee
- ðthee
- zzee
- ʒbeige
- xloch
- hhay
- llay
- ɬrhingyll
- rray
- wway
- jyore
- mmay
- nnay
- ŋsing

Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛtl/ but /ˈpɛtl̩i/.

##### Vowels

- iːfleece
- ihappy
- ɪkit
- ɛdress
- atrap, bath
- ɑːstart, palm, bath
- ɒlot
- ɔːthought, force
- ʌstrut
- ʊfoot
- uːgoose
- əletter
- əːnurse
- ɪənear
- ɛːsquare
- ʊəcure
- eɪface
- ʌɪpride
- aʊmouth
- əʊgoat
- ɔɪvoice
- ãgratin
- ɒ̃salon
- ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
- ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)

##### Other symbols

- The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
- The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
- Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.

View the pronunciation model here.

## Forms

### Variant forms

Also surla.

## Frequency

zurla typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.

zurla is in frequency band 2, which contains words occurring between 0.001 and 0.01 times per million words in modern written English. More about OED's frequency bands

Frequency data is computed programmatically, and should be regarded as an estimate.

### Frequency of zurla, n., 1940–2010

* Occurrences per million words in written English

Historical frequency series are derived from Google Books Ngrams (version 2), a data set based on the Google Books corpus of several million books printed in English between 1500 and 2010.

The overall frequency for a given word is calculated by summing frequencies for the main form of the word, any plural or inflected forms, and any major spelling variations.

For sets of homographs (distinct entries that share the same word-form, e.g. mole, n.¹, mole, n.², mole, n.³, etc.), we have estimated the frequency of each homograph entry as a fraction of the total Ngrams frequency for the word-form. This may result in inaccuracies.

Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the Google Books corpus.

Decade | Frequency per million words
--- | ---
1940 | 0.0018
1950 | 0.0016
1960 | 0.0015
1970 | 0.0014
1980 | 0.0016
1990 | 0.0008
2000 | 0.0009
2010 | 0.001

zurla, n. was first published in 1986; not fully revised.

zurla, n. was last modified in December 2024.