pipe: [OE] The etymological notion underlying pipe is of a ‘piping’ sound. The word goes back to a Common Romance *pīpa, a derivative of the Latin verb pīpāre ‘chirp’. This was formed from the base *pīp-, imitative of the sounds made by young birds, which also lies behind English pigeon. Prehistoric Germanic took over *pīpa, and it has since evolved to German pfeife, Dutch pijp, Swedish pipa, and English pipe. By the time it reached English it had broadened out semantically from its original ‘tubular wind instrument which makes a piping sound’ to ‘tube’ in general. => pigeon
