tympan
/ˈtɪmpən/ noun
Forms tympans
- noun (printing) A piece of cloth padding placed under the platen of a letterpress to distribute the pressure on the sheet being printed.
- noun (music) The stretched membrane of a drum.
- noun (music) A percussion instrument consisting of a hollow cylinder with such a membrane at each end.
- noun (architecture) A tympanum.
- noun The tympanum of the ear.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Medieval Latin tympanum.
Webster’s 1913
Etymology [F., fr. tympanum a kettledrum, a panel of a door. See Tympanum, and cf. Tymp.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “tympan”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details