Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A mid-sized drum having one or two heads and a cylindrical body with a depth approximately equal to its diameter, often used in drum sets.
- noun Any of various small-headed drums, usually long and narrow, that are beaten with the hands.
- noun A monotonous rhythmical drumbeat or similar sound.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A circular dye-vat constructed in such a way that a series of upright mallets may be made to pound upon the material placed within it and thus work the dye-liquor well into the fiber. Largely used in hosierydyeing, particularly in the application of aniline black.
- To beat on a tom-tom.
- noun In India, the drum used by musicians, jugglers, public criers, etc.
- noun Same as
gong , 1.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun See
tam-tam .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun onomatopoeia A small joined pair of
drums , beaten with the hands. - noun usually as a pair Any cylindrical drum, with no
snare ; part of adrum kit .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of various drums with small heads
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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The shortcut may be setting yourself up for a trance by entrainment with a metronome-like pitter-patter of a tom-tom drum.
The Bushman Way of Tracking God PhD Bradford Keeney 2010
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From his lead-singer position Mr. Clausen plays a tom-tom, a crash cymbal and an electronic drum pad, and frequently wanders over to bang on a drum kit with Mr. Husmer.
Magical Musical Chairs Craig Winneker 2011
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Its brilliantly evoked opening describes a shabby rooming house in which "spacious rooms had been sliced to cubicles where the staccato chatter of the inmates, relayed like tom-tom messages, mingled with the crash of irreconcilable radios."
The First Lady Of Futurism Helen Carr 2011
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And headlining at midnight, the cocky and excellent Thee Satisfaction with a new batch of tom-tom computer beats.
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Then I'd hit the floor tom-tom on the same beat as the snare.
Who Else Made More Hit Songs? Marc Myers 2011
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I can play one beat on a tom-tom, and that might set me off.
Master of Time, Defier of Age Larry Blumenfeld 2011
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From the living room floor where she sat, cross-legged, with her tom-tom drum on her lap and the bottle set out before her, the Mysteress began her song-chant.
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The stone came down with a thump on the white meat, and thereafter arose and fell in a sort of tom-tom accompaniment to the poet's song:
CHAPTER VII 2010
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"I used brushes on the snare drum with my right hand and a soft mallet on the tom-tom with my left," he said.
Who Else Made More Hit Songs? Marc Myers 2011
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Enough banging on that particular tom-tom for now.
john commented on the word tom-tom
See also tom tom.
October 1, 2010