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Tympanum   /tˈɪmpənəm/   Listen
noun
Tympanum  n.  (pl. E. tympanums, L. tympana)  
1.
(Anat.)
(a)
The ear drum, or middle ear. Sometimes applied incorrectly to the tympanic membrane. See Ear.
(b)
A chamber in the anterior part of the syrinx of birds.
2.
(Zool.) One of the naked, inflatable air sacs on the neck of the prairie chicken and other species of grouse.
3.
(Arch.)
(a)
The recessed face of a pediment within the frame made by the upper and lower cornices, being usually a triangular space or table.
(b)
The space within an arch, and above a lintel or a subordinate arch, spanning the opening below the arch.
4.
(Mech.) A drum-shaped wheel with spirally curved partitions by which water is raised to the axis when the wheel revolves with the lower part of the circumference submerged, used for raising water, as for irrigation.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tympanum" Quotes from Famous Books



... melody, and their combinations harmony. 3. From the repetition of sounds at certain intervals of time; as we hear them with greater facility and accuracy, when we expect them; because they are then excited by volition, as well as by irritation, or at least the tympanum is then better adapted to assist their production; hence the two musical times or bars; and hence the rhimes in poetry give pleasure, as well as the measure of the verse: and lastly the pleasure we receive from music, arises from the associations of agreeable sentiments with ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... how it does belabor and thrash one's tympanum!" said the judge irritably, as he slowly ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... conception of light and vision, without motion, communicated to my eye, from the luminous, extended, coloured body. At the instant I smell something, my sense is irritated, or put in motion, by the parts that exhale from the odoriferous body. At the moment I hear a sound, the tympanum of my ear is struck by the air, put in motion by a sonorous body, which would not act if it were not in motion itself. Whence it evidently follows, that, without motion, I can neither feel, see, distinguish, compare, judge, nor occupy my ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... materials, embroidered in various bright colors. In one hand each of them carried a small tambourine and with the other he agitated a little bell. From the rim of each tambourine depended a metallic ball, so placed that the least movement of the hand brought it in contact with the resonant tympanum, which caused a strange, continuous undercurrent of pulsating sound. There new performers circled several times about the court, marking the time of their dancing steps by measured thumpings of the tambourines. At the completion of each turn, they made a deafening noise with their instruments. ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... nest! Earwigs are the prolifickest things, and so fond of their offspring! They sit on their eggs like hens, and the young, as soon as they are born, creep under them for protection,—quite touchingly! Imagine such an establishment domesticated at one's tympanum! ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton


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