How to Use fife in a Sentence

fife

noun
  • The townspeople agreed, and the piper began to play a lively tune upon his fife.
    — Simon Rich, New Yorker, 22 June 2026
  • Instruction is provided for fife, snare and bass drum as well as marching.
    — Courant Community, 3 Apr. 2018
  • His wooden flutes, fifes and whistles are still being played by fifers and folk musicians around the world.
    — courant.com, 21 June 2019
  • Audiences are not always sure what to expect from a fife and drum corps comprised of young people.
    — Jan Crawford, CBS News, 29 May 2023
  • Sesame Street’s calendar had Bert and Ernie on the drums and Grover on the fife.
    — Peter Larsen, Oc Register, 21 Jan. 2026
  • As a heritage grain, Blackwell says that red fife has held a long history in Canada.
    — Tiffany Leigh, Vogue, 25 Sep. 2017
  • She had been abducted while walking home from practice with her school’s fife-and-drum team in 1968.
    — New York Times, 13 June 2021
  • Marching bands, fife and drum corps, floats, military units, giant balloons, equestrian, drill teams and more.
    — Leada Gore | [email protected], al.com, 4 July 2019
  • Soldiers from the Old Guard, wearing tricorne hats and bright-red uniforms, marched past, amid a flourish of fifes and drums.
    — Seth Harp, Harpers Magazine, 19 Sep. 2025
  • Williamsburg is often thought of as the territory of elementary school field trips, tricorn hats, and fifes and drums.
    — Heather Bien, Southern Living, 5 Apr. 2025
  • The event includes marching bands, fife and drum corps, floats, military units, giant balloons, equestrian, drill teams and more.
    — Washington Post, 2 July 2019
  • The fife and drum corps is missing in action (because blowing air is a no-no), but new walking tours have been introduced to keep guests warm outside by moving around.
    — Vicky Hallett, Washington Post, 23 Nov. 2020
  • There was cannon fire, fife troupes populated with high school band students, and long orations about the importance of remembering the past.
    — Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 26 Jan. 2023
  • Reenactors dressed in Revolutionary War uniforms fired salutes, and a fife and drum corps played music.
    — Dorvall Bedford, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 Dec. 2022
  • The film's soundtrack carries on that way throughout, showing the boundless energy of hardscrabble, down-to-their-last-dime people via fifes, fiddles, and harps.
    — Alex Galbraith, Entertainment Weekly, 15 Feb. 2026
  • The musical anachronist is also adept at a variety of suitably ancient instruments such as the fife and quills, and he’s even issued a single on wax cylinder.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 22 July 2021
  • American fife and drum blues has been popular in the hill country of Mississippi and Tennessee for decades.
    — Lici Beveridge, USA Today, 17 Feb. 2021
  • Visitors also can enjoy games, historic cannon fire, a traditional fife and drum parade and food concessions.
    — Lauryn Azu, Detroit Free Press, 27 June 2018
  • The museum holds a number of artifacts from the Willard era, including a drum used as a model for the original painting and a fife from the same period.
    — Michael Sangiacomo, cleveland.com, 12 Apr. 2018
  • Calvin Jackson was an innovator, known for incorporating fife and drum blues as well as funk and soul into hill country blues for a musical signature that was his own.
    — Lici Beveridge, USA Today, 17 Feb. 2021
  • Beginning at noon, the Colchester Continentals participated in a parade and muster with other fife and drums corps from around the state.
    — Melanie Savage, courant.com, 7 Aug. 2019
  • The head drummer of the colonial fife and drum band was a Black man in a Revolutionary War costume, his dreadlocks peeking from under a powdered wig.
    — Catherine Simpson Bueker, The Conversation, 1 July 2026
  • Drums and bells had been used for so long to gather people for town meetings or church services that hardly anybody complained when bells were tuned or fifes added to the drum corps, which began to march with choreographic precision.
    — Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 28 June 2026
  • On a recent Saturday, wedding parties filed onto the lawn of the south facade awaiting their photo op, while colonial re-enactors marched nearby, accompanied by fife and drum, and groups of tourists milled about.
    — Washington Post, 20 July 2017
  • Marvel’s calendar portrayed Spider-Man and the Hulk playing the drums and Captain America playing the fife.
    — Peter Larsen, Oc Register, 21 Jan. 2026
  • His supporters, some dressed as American Revolution-era patriots and playing fifes, were thrilled by Ramaswamy’s turn in the spotlight Wednesday night.
    — Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times, 24 Aug. 2023
  • Its roots predate the academy itself, going back to the fife players and drummers serving as field musicians since George Washington established an Army post here in 1778.
    — Corey Kilgannon, New York Times, 9 June 2017
  • In 1778, during the Revolutionary War, a group of soldiers surprised their commander in chief by playing fife and drums outside his quarters at Valley Forge.
    — Lillian Cunningham, Washington Post, 18 Feb. 2018
  • Tarrant turned the second-story apartment into a broader historical museum, with numerous war artifacts, including his great grandfather’s diaries and sketches from the Civil War, along with his drum and fife.
    — Susan Glaser, cleveland, 10 Aug. 2023
  • Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine in Baltimore came to life on Thursday, booming with the sounds of fifes and drums, as hundreds of students watched.
    — Madeline Burke, CBS News, 23 Apr. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'fife.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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