Meaning

A pear-shaped vegetable or its vine; the chayote..

Definitions by Sense

1. A pear-shaped vegetable or its vine; the chayote.
2. (music) The eunuch flute, a kind of kazoo or membranophone.
3. An 18th-century hussar hat resembling a slightly conical shako or tall fez.
4. A tartlet or biscuit garnished with almond, first produced in Rouen around 1800.

Example Sentences

To start your mirliton plant, buy the fruit in a produce-oriented market in spring and plant it in full sunlight in fertile, well-drained soil, leaving the stem half of the fruit out of the ground.

One day last summer, Stephon and Scarbaby had been on the way to Neidermayer's grocery store, by the short cut, when Scarbaby decided to pick mirlitons off the mirliton vine in the yard by the Lombarde house, which used to be a plantation[…]

In New Orleans, for example, the mirliton (chayote) tree has grown for centuries[…]

In form the mirlitons resembled flutes, shawms, or other instruments, and were generally furnished with a parchment membrane.

Whistles, mirlitons, flutes, trumpets or horns, clarinets, and oboes are all played in one or more parts of the continent.

The bars have air resonators below, and mirliton membranes are set over holes in the resonators (see Figure 10-3C).

Headwear: This was either the colpack or the mirliton. Regiments No. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 9 wore the former; 5, 6, 7 and 8 the latter.

Hélie also raised his mirliton in solidarity, but after the initial hooray and bravado, he felt a deep sense of dread.

Word Forms

• mirlitons

Related Words

When Should You Use Mirliton?

Use mirliton when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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