fife

The two presidents celebrated the “ironclad alliance” amid fife and drums on the White House lawn ahead of their high-level meetings and a state dinner.

From Washington Times ● Apr. 26, 2023

When Daudet is unsuccessful in discovering the source of an old proverb, a fife player advises him to seek it in “the cicadas’ library,” meaning a field where one lies on one’s back and contemplates.

From New York Times ● Jul. 1, 2021

A fife and drum corps perform at King and Market streets before the parade passes through.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 30, 2021

There was a “Spirit of ’76”—three men with fife and drum.

From Slate ● Jun. 20, 2020

No one had a right to take such frightful risks with his fife.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

Then the “sounds of Nazi marches with fifes and drums came through the radio.”

From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2025

His supporters, some dressed as American Revolution-era patriots and playing fifes, were thrilled by Ramaswamy’s turn in the spotlight Wednesday night.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2023

Look for fifes and drums, decorated automobiles, tractor-pulled floats, marching dance teams and pageant winners.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 29, 2022

You heard the muffled drums and the fifes that played lowly.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 6, 2017

The sounds of beating drums and whistling fifes, and the cries of “Huzzah! Huzzah!” blew toward me over the rooftops.

From "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson

He let himself be drummed and fifed home by the town militia towards evening.

From Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces; or, the Wedded Life, Death, and Marriage of Firmian Stanislaus Siebenkaes, Parish Advocate in the Burgh of Kuhschnappel. by Jean Paul

Unlike the buccaneers, who had fired high to cripple their enemies above decks, the French fifed low to smash the hull of their assailant.

From Captain Blood by Sabatini, Rafael

So I was, and I voted for him, drummed for him, fifed and blowed; that was no reason for my thinking him the best man we had for the office.

From The Humors of Falconbridge A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes by Falconbridge

A drum corps was organized, if that could be said to be organized in which every member drummed or fifed independently of all others.

From The Story of the Raising and Organization of a Regiment of Volunteers in 1862 Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Commandery of the District of Columbia, War Papers 46 by Spear, Ellis

The city fathers have decked out some of Boston's sons in Revolutionary costumes and sent them roaming through the streets fifing and drumming.

From Time Magazine Archive

Now they had prepared a little fleet to pass over to the Fourth of July celebration, which some queer drumming and fifing, from the opposite bank, had announced to be "on hand."

From Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 by Fuller, Margaret

Orioles, to be sure, after a month of silence, again have fits of merry fifing.

From The Foot-path Way by Torrey, Bradford

In these drumming and fifing times the babies suck in quarrel with their mother’s milk.

From Southern Literature From 1579-1895 A comprehensive review, with copious extracts and criticisms for the use of schools and the general reader by Manly, Louise

It was very quiet here, save for the occasional jangle of the cow-bells and the far-off fifing of frogs in the marsh below.

From The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck A Comedy of Limitations by Cabell, James Branch