tympanum

From Latin tympanum, from Ancient Greek τύμπανον (túmpanon), from τύπτω (túptō, “I strike, I hit”).

tympanum (plural tympanums or tympana)

1. (architecture) A triangular space between the sides of a pediment.
2. (architecture) The space within an arch, and above a lintel or a subordinate arch, spanning the opening below the arch.
   • 2005, Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty, Bloomsbury Publishing, paperback, page 9

     It was a black-and-white picture of a Romanesque doorway, with flanking saints and a lively Last Judgement in the tympanum [...].

3. The middle ear.
4. The eardrum.
5. A hearing organ in frogs, toads and some insects.
6. (engineering) A drum-shaped wheel with spirally curved partitions by which water is raised to the axis when the wheel revolves with the lower part of the circumference submerged; used for raising water, as for irrigation.

Borrowed from Ancient Greek τύμπανον (túmpanon), from τύπτω (túptō, “I strike, beat”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈtym.pa.num/, [ˈtʏm.pa.nũ]

tympanum n (genitive tympanī); second declension

1. drum, timbrel, tambour, tambourine

Second declension.

• tympanum in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• tympanum in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• tympanum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• tympanum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• tympanum in The Perseus Project (1999) Perseus Encyclopedia‎
• tympanum in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• tympanum in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin