Definition of "fife" []

• A small, high-pitched, transverse flute used primarily to accompany drums in a military or marching band. (noun)
• To play a fife. (verb-intransitive)
• To perform (a piece or tune) on or as if on a fife. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The effective centre of my Own fife is the Province of Quebec and I would not have it otherwise."
• "The old cylindrical ear-piercing fife is an obsolete instrument, being superseded by a small army flute, still, however, called a fife, used with the side drum in the drum and fife band."
• "He had a great longing — strange enough in that peaceful sheep-raising neighborhood — to go into the army; but he and his elder brother were the mainstay of their crippled father, and he could not be spared from the large household until a younger brother could take his place; so that all his fire and military zeal went for the present into martial tunes, and the fife was the safety-valve for his enthusiasm."