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The Collaborative International Dictionary
tympani

Kettledrum \Ket"tle*drum`\ (-dr[u^]m`), n.

  1. (Mus.) A drum made of thin copper in the form of a hemispherical kettle, with parchment stretched over the mouth of it.

    Note: Kettledrums, in pairs, were formerly used in martial music for cavalry, but are now chiefly confined to orchestras, where they are called tympani.

  2. An informal social party at which a light collation is offered, held in the afternoon or early evening. Cf. Drum, n., 4 and 5.

Wiktionary
tympani

n. (alternative spelling of timpani English)

WordNet
tympani

n. a large hemispherical brass or copper percussion instrument with a drumhead that can be tuned by adjusting the tension on it [syn: kettle, kettledrum, tympanum, timpani]

Usage examples of "tympani".

The umbrellas, the sombrero and the tympani were carried in by waiters.

Beyond the tympani, he could see the dimly glowing faces of his wife, his stepdaughter, his niece and his cousin.

He bent his head, groped frantically inside the wreath and then looked up with a startled expression in the direction of the tympani, where the spot light revealed Lord Pastern in an ecstatic fury, wading into his drums.

To distract attention still further from the central figure, a spot light played on the tympani where Lord Pastern could be seen in terrific action.

But they would talk, and the talk would reach the Tympani of the Ansha.

Flushed blue with fury and black with implacable purpose, the Tympani burst within.

Not for days did the Tympani realize the truth, and by then it was too late.

Her every attention was focused on her tympani, waiting for the signal to spring the ambush.

If we had better hearing, and could discern the descants of sea birds, the rhythmic tympani of schools of mollusks, or even the distant harmonics of midges hanging over meadows in the sun, the combined sound might lift us off our feet.

Brandenburg Concertos for my ear, but I am open to wonder whether the same events are recalled by the rhythms of insects, the long, pulsing runs of birdsong, the descants of whales, the modulated vibrations of a million locusts in migration, the tympani of gorilla breasts, termite heads, drumfish bladders.

Yet with violin and tympani Stravinsky had managed to communicate in that tango the same exhaustion, the same airlessness one saw in the slicked-down youths who were trying to imitate Vernon Castle, and in their mistresses, who simply did not care.

As he approached the end of the Climbing Cave, the threads of water far below wove themselves together, and slowly he became aware of the roar and tympani of the great waterfall that led down to the Crystal Cave.

Thunder pounded the heavy, stone walls and rooftop, reverberating like the head of a tympani drum.

Sounds of rising notes, of chitinous surfaces sandpapering against one another, of water being heated to steam, of tympani echoing from a mountaintop.

Holmes mounted them like a shadow but I was not as successful and every sound boomed like the tympani section of the London Philharmonic to me.