English horn, musical instrument, the alto of the oboe family, pitched a fifth lower than the oboe and treated as a transposing instrument. It has a pear-shaped bell, giving it a soft, melancholy tone. The first important parts for it were written by Rossini in William Tell (1829) and by Meyerbeer in Robert le diable (1831). Other composers, notably Wagner, have used it in opera and orchestral music. The 18th-century form of the instrument was curved, whence, possibly, its misleading designation as a horn. In Britain and Europe it is often termed cor anglais.

Orchestral woodwind instrument, a large oboe pitched a 5th below the ordinary oboe. It has a bent metal crook, to hold the double reed, and a bulbous bell. It is a transposing instrument (its music written in a different tone than it actually sounds) in F. It is neither English nor a horn; in its original name, cor anglais, cor (“horn”) referred to its original hornlike curved shape, but the source of anglais (“English”) is a mystery. It has remained a basically orchestral instrument since its first appearance circa 1750.

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