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Kettledrum   Listen
noun
Kettledrum  n.  
1.
(Mus.) A drum made of thin copper in the form of a hemispherical kettle, with parchment stretched over the mouth of it. Note: Kettledrums, in pairs, were formerly used in martial music for cavalry, but are now chiefly confined to orchestras, where they are called tympani.
2.
An informal social party at which a light collation is offered, held in the afternoon or early evening. Cf. Drum, n., 4 and 5.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Kettledrum" Quotes from Famous Books



... into it, provided we be not now too hide-bound: for that's the trouble—that our thoughts grow to revolve in stodgy grooves of use-and-wont, and shun to soar beyond. Look at our Parliament—a hurdy-gurdy turning out, age after age, a sing-song of pigmy regulations, accompanied for grum kettledrum by a musketry of suicides, and for pibroch by a European bleating of little children. We are still a million miles from civilization! For what is a civilized society? It can only be one in which the people are proud and happy! The people of Africa are happy, not proud; not civilized; the people ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel



Words linked to "Kettledrum" :   kettle, tympani, percussive instrument, tympanum



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