Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This

drumfish

noun

small to medium-sized bottom-dwelling food and game fishes of shallow coastal and fresh waters that make a drumming noise [syn: drum]

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Drumfish

Drum\, n. [Cf. D. trom, trommel, LG. trumme, G. trommel, Dan. tromme, Sw. trumma, OHG. trumba a trumpet, Icel. pruma a clap of thunder, and as a verb, to thunder, Dan. drum a booming sound, drumme to boom; prob. partly at least of imitative origin; perh. akin to E. trum, or trumpet.]

1. (Mus.) An instrument of percussion, consisting either of a hollow cylinder, over each end of which is stretched a piece of skin or vellum, to be beaten with a stick; or of a metallic hemisphere (kettledrum) with a single piece of skin to be so beaten; the common instrument for marking time in martial music; one of the pair of tympani in an orchestra, or cavalry band.

The drums cry bud-a-dub. --Gascoigne.

2. Anything resembling a drum in form; as: (a) A sheet iron radiator, often in the shape of a drum, for warming an apartment by means of heat received from a stovepipe, or a cylindrical receiver for steam, etc. (b) A small cylindrical box in which figs, etc., are packed. (c) (Anat.) The tympanum of the ear; -- often, but incorrectly, applied to the tympanic membrane. (d) (Arch.) One of the cylindrical, or nearly cylindrical, blocks, of which the shaft of a column is composed; also, a vertical wall, whether circular or polygonal in plan, carrying a cupola or dome. (e) (Mach.) A cylinder on a revolving shaft, generally for the purpose of driving several pulleys, by means of belts or straps passing around its periphery; also, the barrel of a hoisting machine, on which the rope or chain is wound.

3. (Zo["o]l.) See Drumfish.

4. A noisy, tumultuous assembly of fashionable people at a private house; a rout. [Archaic]

Not unaptly styled a drum, from the noise and emptiness of the entertainment. --Smollett.

Note: There were also drum major, rout, tempest, and hurricane, differing only in degrees of multitude and uproar, as the significant name of each declares.

5. A tea party; a kettledrum. --G. Eliot.

Bass drum. See in the Vocabulary.

Double drum. See under Double.