kazoon.

1884 in Lisbon (Dakota Territory) Star 31 Oct. A kazoo is an instrument invented to give pleasure and satisfaction to the small boy.

1895 Montgomery Ward Catal. Spring & Summer 245/3 Kazoos, the great musical wonder,..anyone can play it; imitates fowls, animals, bagpipes, etc.

1926 Daily Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 24 Jan. 9/3 There will be an abundance of paper hats, balloons, kazoos and other novelties.

1926 P. Whiteman & M. M. McBride Jazz ix. 201 Did you ever see a kazoo? Of course you must have—a small worthless-looking piece of tin. A kazoo stuck into a mute will give a buzzy sound that comes handy in certain pieces.

1927 Bulletin 24 Aug. A new musical atrocity is reported to be coming to Scotland. It is the Gazoo. This instrument of ear-torture is simply an adaptation of the primitive ‘comb and tissue paper’.

1938 Oxf. Compan. Music 583/2 Mirliton, the French name for what English children call (or used to call) ‘Tommy Talker’, or ‘kazoo’. It is a tube with a membrane at each end and two holes in the side, near the two ends, into one of which holes one sings in one's natural voice, the tone issuing in a caricatural fashion.

1938 ‘R. Hyde’ Nor Years Condemn x. 195 The Maoris could make the dish-like gazookas of tin and wire sound like guitars.

1940 Amer. Speech 15 125 George Gershwin's..‘Blue Monday’ has..Kazoo Mutes (to cornets).

1956 J. Latimer Sinners & Shrouds ix. 83 ‘A neglected instrument, the kazoo,’ he was saying. ‘A cock's challenge in Red McKenzie's hands, raucous and lewd, a braggart, a bully, a flap-wing lover.’

1956 M. W. Stearns Story of Jazz (1957) xv. 171 Jack Bland, Dick Sliven, and Red McKenzie played a banjo, a comb wrapped in tissue paper, and a kazoo (a toy horn with tissue paper that vibrates with humming).

1965 G. Melly Owning-up xi. 135 A kind of sub-jazz in which kazoos, tea-chest and broom-handle basses..and empty suitcases replaced the more conventional musical instruments.

1966 T. Pynchon Crying of Lot 49 i. 10 The Fort Wayne Settecento Ensemble's variorum recording of the Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto.

1968 Blues Unlimited Nov. 8 Dewey Corley..now plays kazoo and washtub bass.

1970 Peace News 8 May 8/4 I think the time has come for us to make our own music... To beat on pots and pans, blow kazoos and our combs wrapped in wax paper.

1972 Guardian 29 May 5/5 The unusual cigar-shaped instrument, the kazoo—a cheap toy which makes a vibrant noise when blown—can help unmusical children to sing in tune.

1909 R. A. Wason Happy Hawkins xxvi. 301 The storm that was presently kazooin' along was fierce an' horrible.

1959 Guardian 26 Aug. 5/2 The kazooers' parents give tremendous support.

1970 Guardian Weekly 14 Mar. 16/1 Running the gauntlet of a battalion of kazooists.

1959 Guardian 26 Aug. 5/2 There is..a new outbreak of kazooing in South Wales... On the history of gazooka (as it is called in South Wales) Mr. Gwyn Thomas..is an expert.

1973 Guardian 19 Feb. 8/4 A Kazoo will give out a sort of buzzing noise... As one of the 120 Kazooing members of the audience I found it fun.