Trombone" is the Italian word tromba (trumpet) plus the suffix –one (big). In other words, it means "big trumpet." The word first appears in court records in Ferrara in 1439, when the Latin term tuba ductilis was translated "trombonus vulgo dictus" or "trombone in the vernacular."[citation needed] The length of the trombone's tube was not necessarily longer than that of the trumpet, but it could be made longer by means of the slide.[citation needed] "Trombone" is apparently the first word that explicitly means a slide instrument.[citation needed]
During the Renaissance, the equivalent English term was "sackbut." The word first appears in court records in 1495 as "shakbusshe" at about the time King Henry VII married a Portuguese princess who brought some musicians with her. "Shakbusshe" is similar to "sacabuche," attested in Spain as early as 1478. The French equivalent "saqueboute" appears a little earlier, in 1466.[1]
The German "Posaune" long predates the invention of the slide and could refer to a natural trumpet as late as the early fifteenth century.[2]