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drumhead

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — drum sits at #2,711Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: drumheads

A drumhead is the tight skin stretched over a drum. Tighten the drumhead.

Tension sets the pitch, and the same drum sounds like a different instrument tuned up. A drumhead court martial is named from the practice of holding one on a drum in the field.

Bikinibomb · Public domain

Definitions of drumhead

  1. 1noundrumheadThe tight skin stretched over a drum.C2

    “The drumhead split halfway through the second set.”

drumhead is a part.

Where it comes from

  1. Middle Dutch

    trommelslach — drumbeat

  2. English

    drum

  3. English, today

    drumhead

Built from

  • trommel · Middle Dutch — drum
  • slach · Middle Dutch — beat

From drum + -head. drum Perhaps a back-formation from drumslade, from Middle Dutch trommelslach (“drumbeat”), from trommel (“drum”) + slach (“beat”) (Dutch slag). Or perhaps borrowed directly from a continental Germanic language; compare Middle Dutch tromme (“drum”), Middle Low German trumme (“drum”) et al. Compare also Middle High German trumme, trumbe (“drum”), Old High German trumba (“trumpet”). Compare Ancient Greek τῠ́μπᾰνον (“kettledrum”) whence Modern English timbre.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

drumhead in the wild

  • A drumhead or drum skin is a membrane stretched over one or both of the open ends of a drum.

    Drumhead

  • The drumhead is struck with sticks, mallets, or hands, so that it vibrates and the sound resonates through the drum.

    Drumhead

  • The two drumheads allow a combination of bass and treble with rhythmic high and low pitches.

    Dholak

  • The smaller drumhead is played with the person's dominant hand, while the larger is played by the person's weaker hand.

    Dholak

  • The tar's drumhead is struck with one hand.

    Tar (drum)

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the slach family

drum

drumhead — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others