tympanum

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tympanum

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Borrowed from Latin tympanum (“a drum, timbrel, tambourine; the eardrum”). Doublet of timbre and timpani.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɪm.pən.əm/
• Rhymes: -ɪmpənəm

tympanum (plural tympanums or tympana)

1. (archaic) A drum.
2. (anatomy, zootomy) Any of various anatomic structures in various animals with analogy to a drum head:
   1. (anatomy, zootomy) The eardrum (tympanic membrane, membrana tympanica).
   2. (anatomy, zootomy) The main portion of the middle ear: the tympanic cavity (cavitas tympani).
   3. (zootomy, entomology) A thin tense membrane covering the hearing organ on the leg or body of some insects, sometimes adapted (as in cicadas) for producing sound.
   4. (zootomy) A membranous resonator in a sound-producing organ in frogs and toads.
   5. (zootomy) (in certain birds) The labyrinth at the bottom of the windpipe.
3. (architecture) A vertical recessed triangular space between the sides of a pediment, typically decorated
   1. The recessed triangular space within an arch, and above a lintel or a subordinate arch, spanning the opening below the arch
      • 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty , 1st US edition, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

        It was a black-and-white picture of a Romanesque doorway, with flanking saints and a lively Last Judgement in the tympanum […] .

4. (engineering) 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.

• “tympanum”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “tympanum”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Borrowed from Ancient Greek τῠ́μπᾰνον (túmpanon, “a kettledrum, drum”), from τῠ́πτω (túptō, “to strike, beat, smite”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈtym.pa.num/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈtim.pa.num/,

tympanum n (genitive tympanī); second declension

1. (literally, music) drum, timbrel, tambour, tambourine
   1. (figurative) timbrel as a figure of something effeminate or enervating
2. (transferred sense) (of things of a like shape):
   1. drum or wheel in machines for raising weights, in water organs, etc.
   2. (architecture):
      1. triangular area of a pediment
      2. panel of a door
      3. part of the clepsydra

         Synonym: phellos

This entry needs quotations to illustrate usage. If you come across any interesting, durably archived quotes then please add them!

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• tympanium

Note: see τῠ́μπᾰνον (túmpanon) for later re-borrowings from Byzantine.

• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “tympanum”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volumes 13: To–Tyrus, page 455
• “tympanum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “tympanum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• tympanum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• tympanum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “tympanum”, in The Perseus Project (1999) Perseus Encyclopedia‎
• “tympanum”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “tympanum”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

tympanum n

1. form removed with the spelling reform of 2005; superseded by tympanon