medieval wind instrument, c. 1500, from French saquebute, a bass trumpet with a slide like a trombone; presumably identical with Old North French saqueboute (14c.), "a lance with an iron hook for pulling down mounted men," said to be from Old North French saquier "to pull, draw" + bouter "to thrust," from Germanic *buton (see butt (v.)). Originally in English with many variant spellings, including sagbutt, shakbott, shagbush.
In Dan. iii:5, used wrongly to translate Aramaic sabbekha, name of a stringed instrument (translated correctly in Septuagint as sambuke, and in Vulgate as sambuca, both names of stringed instruments, and probably ultimately cognate with the Aramaic word). The error began with Coverdale (1535), who evidently thought it was a wind instrument and rendered it with shawm; the Geneva translators, evidently following Coverdale, chose sackbut because it sounded like the original Aramaic word, and this was followed in KJV and Revised versions.
