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The clarinet is a family of woodwind instruments that have a single-reed mouthpiece, a straight cylindrical tube with an approximately cylindrical bore, and a flaring bell. A person who plays any type of clarinet is called a clarinetist or clarinettist.
The word clarinet may have entered the English language via the French clarinette (the feminine diminutive of Old French clarin or clarion), or from Provençal clarin, "oboe". It "is plainly a diminutive of clarino, the Italian for trumpet", and the Italian clarinetto is the source of the name in many other languages. According to Johann Gottfried...