Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home 		English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Bass drum   /bæs drəm/   Listen
noun
Bass drum  n.  (Mus.) The largest of the different kinds of drums, having two heads, and emitting a deep, grave sound. See Bass, a.


Drum  n.  
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."
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.
(Zool.) 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." 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.
Bass drum. See in the Vocabulary.
Double drum. See under Double.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words


Share |




"Bass drum" Quotes from Famous Books



... were unable to get into the concert hall of his famous rival. He would then listen outside the window and analyze the sound in this fashion: "Fifty per cent. of the sound is made by the tuba, 20 per cent. by the bass drum, 15 per cent. by the 'cello and 10 per cent. by the clarinet. There are some other instruments, but they are not loud and I guess if we can leave them out nobody will know the difference." So he makes up his orchestra out of ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... went out to his yacht in a hackney launch. He was received at her snowy sides as if he were the emperor of somewhere come to visit one of his rear admirals. He went up the steps as if he were a school-boy caught playing hooky and going up-stairs to play the bass drum to his mother's slipper. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... a sort. A trombone blatted—there was the staccato tuck of a snare drum, and the boom of a bass drum came in with ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... an electric bulb made portable by a coil of cord, and directing the reverberating hammering down of an additional brace of three orchestra chairs for which room had been found by shifting the position of the bass drum. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... longshoremen sat on the curb ten feet away, and a man and a woman leaned against the door of a near-by warehouse. When the song was finished the two workmen hurriedly approached and threw nickels on the face of the big bass drum lying flat on the street, retreating hastily, as though ashamed; the woman did likewise, ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry


Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org