A large hemispherical brass or copper percussion instrument with a drumhead that can be tuned by adjusting the tension on it

Usage examples of kettledrum.

Her heart pounding like a kettledrum, hair plastered to her head with sweat, eyes wild with fright and her cheeks crimson from exertion, she ran right into her brother, Avruhm.

Then came a band with horns, cymbals, and even a copper kettledrum carried in a frame between two men and beaten by two more who walked to either side.

You can feel the heart beating like a kettledrum in a ton of that stuff.

He glanced at the banners that floated among the spears on the slopes on either flank where the kettledrums clamored.

Amalric, hearing the kettledrums behind and on either side of him as well as in front, gave the order to fall back, before they were completely hemmed in.

Instruments were twisted to new demands, cellos made to reach the realm of violins, trombones to cavort like flutes, kettledrums given figures of unprecedented complexity.

The score called for the biggest orchestra yet, sixty-two strings including eight bass cellos, forty-five winds including six bass trumpets and a contra-bass tuba, six to eight kettledrums as well as a bass drum, in all a total of about one hundred and twenty.

We were all in the house one sultry summer evening, when there came a rattle of kettledrums and a clatter of hoofs, which brought my mother and my father to the door, she with me in her arms that I might have the better view.

Of our Perilous Adventure on the Plain We were not half a mile from the town before the roll of kettledrums and the blare of bugles swelling up musically through the darkness announced the arrival of the regiment of horse which our friends at the inn had been expecting.

First rode the dragoons with their standards and kettledrums, then the javelin-men with their halberds, and behind them the line of coaches full of the high dignitaries of the law.

They went out from amongst us amid hand-shakings and blessings, but we saw and heard no more of them, save that a sudden fierce rattle of kettledrums would rise up now and again, which was, as our guards told us, to drown any dying words which might fall from the sufferers and bear fruit in the breasts of those who heard them.

The retinue of Croton swelled from hour to hour until it formed a long double line that wound its way through the camp, at first to the sound of oboes and kettledrums only, but then a sort of choric chanting was developed, certain phrases were shouted loudly and repeatedly.

THUNDER SOUNDS LIKE kettledrums in the distance, and clouds roll past the waning moon.

Conjuring up Vienna and the Danube, I beat more and more loudly until the first and second bass drums of the troopers were drawn to my waltz and the kettledrums of the older boys took up my prelude with varying skill.

Behind the tennis courts my boys from the rostrum were hopping about with their bass drums and kettledrums, their fifes and trumpets.