Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A percussion instrument consisting of a small drumhead with jingling disks fitted into the rim, usually played by shaking and striking with the hand.
- noun A similar instrument without a drumhead.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A small drum formed of a ring or hoop of wood or sometimes of metal, over which is stretched a single head of parchment.
- noun A long narrow drum or tabor used in Provence; also, a bottle-shaped drum used in Egypt.
- noun A Provençal dance originally executed to the sound of tabor and pipe, with or without singing.
- noun Music for such a dance, in duple rhythm and quick tempo, and usually accompanied by a drone bass of a single tone, as the tonic or the dominant, as if played by rubbing the finger across a tambourine.
- noun A remarkable pigeon of Africa, Tympanistria bicolor. See cut under
Tympanistria . - noun A parchment-covered racket, resembling a battledore, with which the ball is thrown in the game of tamburello (which see).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A South American wild dove (
Tympanistria tympanistria ), mostly white, with black-tiped wings and tail. Its resonant note is said to be ventriloquous. - noun A small drum, especially a shallow drum with only one skin, played on with the hand, and having bells at the sides; a timbrel.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
percussion instrument consisting of a small, usually wooden, hoop closed on one side with adrum frame and featuringjingling metal disks on the tread; it is usually held in the hand and shakenrhythmically .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a shallow drum with a single drumhead and with metallic disks in the sides
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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In the hands of a Jewish woman, the tambourine is a symbol of passage, hope, and achievement.
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She doesn't look anything like Louise, who is lean and black haired, but the tambourine is a lot like the one I held in New Orleans last spring when we went to Mardi Gras and sang dive-bar karaoke.
Nigtingale 2009
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One of the other musicians said that the tambourine is a female due to the fact that it makes a pretty jingle and is designed to be spanked.
Skinny Legs and All Robbins, Tom 1990
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He tells me that the tambourine is the sole feminine instrument of the Middle East.
Skinny Legs and All Robbins, Tom 1990
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Tests of strength and endurance occur between the men of the tribe; and visits are paid to the various settlements, during the long winter nights; and songs and choruses are sung, accompanied by a kind of tambourine which is made from the bladder of a walrus or seal, and stretched across the antlers of a reindeer.
A Negro Explorer at the North Pole Matthew A. Henson 1888
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The owner of a tambourine is the equal of a peer; the proprietor of a guitar is the captain of his hundred.
Castilian Days John Hay 1870
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One of the young soldiers had a kind of tambourine—the soldiers sang songs around their own campfire.
The Berrybender Narratives Larry McMurtry 2004
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Says the smooth hypocrite: "I should have set thee on thy way with joyful festivities (Hebrew:" joy ") and songs, with timbrel (toph, a kind of tambourine) and harp" (kinnor, perhaps originally an instrument more like a violin).
Exposition of Genesis: Volume 1 1892-1972 1942
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The Alaskan Indians stretch a skin into a kind of tambourine and beat it with a club to call a bull; which sound, however, might not be unlike one of the many peculiar bellows that I have heard from cow moose in the wilderness.
Wood Folk at School William Joseph Long 1909
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Then some thick-lipped musicians struck up music on quaintly-shaped stringed instruments, and the strange old man, bearing a kind of tambourine in his hand, came round to collect coins, the collection being repeated at the conclusion of each legend.
The Great White Queen A Tale of Treasure and Treason William Le Queux 1895
chained_bear commented on the word tambourine
"TAMBOURINE, fr. a small drum used in military bands." (citation in Historical Military Terms list description)
October 9, 2008
gemielicious commented on the word tambourine
it has all the vowels!
June 11, 2009
fbharjo commented on the word tambourine
Etymology: French, drum, from Middle French, from Arabic tanbur, modification (influenced by tunbur, a lute) of Persian tabir
August 31, 2009