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timpani

UK/ˈtɪmpəni/US/ˈtɪmpəni/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,050 of 15,258mostly written

Timpani are the big tuned kettle drums at the back of an orchestra. Play the timpani, a roll on the timpani, tune the timpani.

They are the only orchestral drums with a definite pitch, and the player retunes them with a pedal during the music. The word is an Italian plural, so one of them is a timpano and the player is a timpanist.

The original uploader was Flamurai at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of timpani

  1. 1nountimpaniBig tuned kettle drums at the back of an orchestra.C1

    “The timpani rumbled like thunder at the climax of the symphony.”

timpani is a drum.

Where it comes from

Italian timpani is the plural of timpano, a drum, from Greek tympanon, from typtein, to strike.

  1. Ancient Greek

    τύμπανον

  2. Latin

    tympanum — drum

  3. Italian

    timpani

  4. English, today

    timpani

Built from

  • timpano · Italian — drum
  • τύπτω · Ancient Greek — to strike, to hit

Borrowed from Italian timpani, plural of timpano (“drum”), from Latin tympanum (“drum”), from Ancient Greek τύμπανον, from τύπτω (“to strike, to hit”). a doublet of tympanum and timbre and timbal and tymbal.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Music & Instruments

Practise this word

timpani in the wild

  • Most modern timpani are pedal timpani and can be tuned quickly and accurately to specific pitches by skilled players through the use of a movable foot-pedal.

    Timpani

  • A musician who plays timpani is a timpanist.

    Timpani

  • The surviving autograph score of the second Finale had no flute or timpani parts, so Robbins Landon took them from a Hummel edition.

    Symphony No. 53 (Haydn)

  • For the timpani part there are rolls indicated by "tr" and a wavy line.

    Symphony No. 53 (Haydn)

  • The first timpani concertos were written in the Baroque and Classical periods of music.

    Timpani concerto

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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.