double bass viol

noun

: a very large member of the viol family tuned an octave below the bass viol

Probably only toward the end of the sixteenth century was a true, six-string, double bass viol … developed that was large enough to have strings capable of sounding at sixteen-foot pitch throughout its range.

—Jeffery Kite-Powell, ed., A Performer's Guide to Renaissance Music, 2nd edition, 2007

called also violone

Word History

First Known Use

1837, in the meaning defined above

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