When the term oboe was initially coined in the late sixteenth century, it was spelled as hautboy. This spelling, along with variations like hawboy, hoeboy, and hautboi, was eventually replaced by oboe around the late 1700s due to Italian influence, which had dropped the initial h. The term is derived from a phonetic rendition of the French hautbois, which can be translated as “high-pitched woodwind” in this particular context. It is composed of two distinct components: haut, meaning “tall”, and bois, meaning “wood”. The term haut, originating from Latin altus, stems from the Proto-Indo-European root hel, signifying “to nourish”. Bois is etymologically linked to words like bush, bouquet, and the city of Boise, Idaho; it is derived from the Latin word for “forest”, boscus, which, through Proto-Germanic buskaz, ultimately traces back to Proto-Indo-European buh, meaning “to grow”.
