tambourine - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From French tambourin (“little drum”), from French tambour (“drum”). Ultimately from Arabic طُنْبُور (ṭunbūr); see it and Persian تنبور for more.

tambourine (plural tambourines)

  1. A percussion instrument consisting of a small, usually wooden, hoop closed on one side with a drum frame and featuring jingling metal disks on the tread; it is most often held in the hand and shaken rhythmically; by extension, any frame drum.
  2. A tambourine dove (Turtur tympanistria).
    • 2006, Gayle Soucek, Doves, page 78:
      Tambourines are shy birds and do not tame easily.
  3. A kind of Provençal dance.
  4. The music for this dance.

percussion instrument

tambourine (third-person singular simple present tambourines, present participle tambourining, simple past and past participle tambourined)

  1. To play the tambourine.
  2. To make a sound like a tambourine.
    • 1995, Henri Cole, The Look of Things, page 23:
      Rain tambourined on the stately square.

tambourine

  1. inflection of tambouriner:
    1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person singular imperative