Nāy

Nāy pl. nāyāt (Pahl., Pers., Turk.), in the course of its history the nāy has come to be many things in many places. In early times it seems to have been a generic term for woodwinds and, together with surnāy, a specific term for the shawm. From about the 9th c. on it replaced the smaller Arab. *qasaba; in the 15th c. it appears as a shawm. Nowadays it is: 1. long *end-blown flute of the Near East, in use from Egypt to Persia (it corresponds to the qasaba of the Maghrib), the only wind instr…