Other forms: tambourines
A tambourine is a small hand drum ringed with jingling discs. Shake the tambourine, play the tambourine, a tambourine part.
The discs are called zils and they sound whether the skin is struck or not, which is why it can be shaken as well as hit. It is one of the oldest instruments known and turns up across the whole Mediterranean world. The name means a little drum.
1nountambourineA small hand drum ringed with jingling discs.
“She shook a tambourine while the rest of the band played.”
tambourine is an instrument.
French tambourin means a little drum, from tambour, a drum, ultimately from a Persian and Arabic word.
French
tambourin — little drum
English, today
tambourine
From French tambourin (“little drum”), from French tambour (“drum”). Ultimately from Arabic طُنْبُور; see it and Persian تنبور for more.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA