'Trombone' is Italian for 'big trumpet' — augmentative of 'tromba.' It replaced English 'sackbut.'
A large brass instrument with a telescopic slide for varying the length of the air column, producing a rich, powerful tone across a wide range.
From Italian 'trombone,' augmentative of 'tromba' (trumpet), from the same Frankish or Old High German *trumba that gives English 'trumpet.' The augmentative suffix '-one' means 'big,' so 'trombone' literally translates as 'big trumpet.' The instrument was previously known in English as the 'sackbut' (from Old French 'saqueboute,' possibly meaning 'pull-push' — referring to the slide mechanism). The Italian name displaced the older English term during the eighteenth century as Italian musical vocabulary
The trombone's earlier English name, 'sackbut,' possibly comes from Old French 'saqueboute' — 'pull-push' — a vivid description of the slide mechanism. When Italian terminology took over European music in the 1700s, this perfectly descriptive English name was abandoned for the Italian word meaning simply 'big trumpet.'