DRUMHEAD • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Drumhead

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noun

Drumhead n.

The parchment or skin stretched over one end of a drum.

The top of a capstan which is pierced with sockets for levers used in turning it.

Drumhead court-martial (Mil.), a summary court-martial called to try offenses on the battlefield or the line of march, when, sometimes, a drumhead has to do service as a writing table.

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Etymology of 'Drumhead'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Drumhead" Quotes from Famous Books

... has not been actually declared, it is customary to be civil to the officers of foreign Powers, but, under the circumstances, I would not rely upon this. The possibility of being drumhead court-martialled and shot might not be remote. Luckily, not even Roentgen rays could discover what a store of drawings, charts, and fortress plans I keep in my memory. But you have not answered my question yet, comrade!—are you ...

— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... full of old parchment-bound books, ranging from a tiny twenty-fourmo, which will stay neither open nor shut, to thin, limp folios that are instantly correspondent to either command. Those that are bound with boards have taken on a drumhead quality of smoothness and tension, especially the fat quartos and small octavos, while the larger volumes that received a flexible binding resemble nothing in surface so much as the wrinkled diploma on yonder wall, with ...

— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... times that try men's souls." Tom Paine wrote those words on a drumhead, by the light of a campfire. That was when Washington's little army of ragged, rugged men was retreating across New Jersey, having tasted ...

— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Words linked to "Drumhead" : drumhead court-martial, summary, membranophone, head, tympan, membrane, drum, unofficial