musette

Origin

From both of the following: * Late Middle English musette (“type of bagpipe”), from Middle French musette, Old French musette (“type of bagpipe”) (modern French musette), from muse (“bagpipe”) + -ette (diminutive suffix). Muse is derived from muser (“to play the bagpipe; (figuratively) to flatter”), perhaps from musel (“muzzle (protruding part of an animal’s head)”) (alluding to a bagpipe player puffing out the cheeks), from Late Latin mūsus (“muzzle”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps expressive of protruding lips and/or influenced by Latin mūgiō (“to bellow, low, moo”), from Proto-Indo-European *mug-, *mūg- (onomatopoeia of the lowing of cattle). * Borrowed from French musette in the 18th century. Sense 2 (“small bag or knapsack with a shoulder strap”) is due to the resemblance of the original knapsack to the bag of bagpipes.