| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
| a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc. |
drum1 (drʌm) ![]() | |
| —n | |
| 1. | music a percussion instrument sounded by striking a membrane stretched across the opening of a hollow cylinder or hemisphere |
| 2. | informal beat the drum for to attempt to arouse interest in |
| 3. | the sound produced by a drum or any similar sound |
| 4. | an object that resembles a drum in shape, such as a large spool or a cylindrical container |
| 5. | architect |
| a. one of a number of cylindrical blocks of stone used to construct the shaft of a column | |
| b. the wall or structure supporting a dome or cupola | |
| 6. | short for eardrum |
| 7. | Also called: drumfish any of various North American marine and freshwater sciaenid fishes, such as Equetus pulcher (striped drum), that utter a drumming sound |
| 8. | a type of hollow rotor for steam turbines or axial compressors |
| 9. | computing See disk a rotating cylindrical device on which data may be stored for later retrieval: now mostly superseded by disks |
| 10. | archaic a drummer |
| 11. | informal (Austral) the drum the necessary information (esp in the phrase give (someone) the drum) |
| —vb (sometimes foll by up) , drums, drumming, drummed | |
| 12. | to play (music) on or as if on a drum |
| 13. | to beat or tap (the fingers) rhythmically or regularly |
| 14. | (intr) (of birds) to produce a rhythmic sound, as by beating the bill against a tree, branch, etc |
| 15. | to summon or call by drumming |
| 16. | (tr) to instil by constant repetition: to drum an idea into someone's head |
| [C16: probably from Middle Dutch tromme, of imitative origin] | |
| drum out | |
| —vb (usually foll by of) | |
| a. to expel from a club, association, etc | |
| b. (formerly) to dismiss from military service to the beat of a drum | |
drum (drŭm)
n.
See eardrum.
drum
adj, n. Ancient techspeak term referring to slow, cylindrical magnetic media that were once state-of-the-art storage devices. Under BSD Unix the disk partition used for swapping is still called `/dev/drum'; this has led to considerable humor and not a few straight-faced but utterly bogus `explanations' getting foisted on newbies. See also "The Story of Mel" in Appendix A.drum out
Expel or dismiss publicly and in disgrace, as in They drummed him out of the club. This usage, which alludes to dismissal from a military service to the beat of a drum, began to be applied to civilian expulsions in the mid-1700s.