oboe

The English word oboe was adopted around 1770 from the Italian oboè, which was Italy's spelling of how the French word hautbois sounded in the 17th century. Hautbois itself is a compound of haut ("high, loud, high-pitched") and bois ("wood, woodwind").

English once called the instrument hautboy, closer to the French original, before switching to oboe once the Italian-flavored spelling took hold.

The word carries two French roots fused together — haut, meaning high or loud, and bois, meaning wood — inside its own name, though English has no other common word built from either piece.