Word.ws English Dictionary

drum

/ˈdɹʌm/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England/ˈdɹʊm/

drum noun: a percussive musical instrument spanned with a thin covering on at least one end for striking, forming an acoustic chamber; a membranophone.

Noun (1)

drum (plural drums)

  1. A percussive musical instrument spanned with a thin covering on at least one end for striking, forming an acoustic chamber; a membranophone.
    • He's playing the piano and she's playing the drums!
    • In the Province of Xenſi, near the City Vucung, is a Hill called Taipe, which if a Drum be beaten upon it, preſently followeth Thunder, Lightning, and ſtormy weather, inſomuch that the Magiſtrates have forbidden all perſons upon pain of death to beat any Drum there.1669, John Nievhoff, “Of ſome THINGS more then NATURAL, and ſtrange POOLS.”, in John Ogilby, transl., An Embassy from the Eaſt-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham Emperour...
    Synonyms:
    skins
  2. Any similar hollow, cylindrical object.
    • Replace the drum unit of your printer.
  3. A barrel or large cylindrical container for liquid transport and storage.
    • The restaurant ordered ketchup in 50-gallon drums.
  4. (US) Synonym of construction barrel.
  5. The encircling wall that supports a dome or cupola.
  6. Any of the cylindrical blocks that make up the shaft of a pillar.
  7. A drumfish (family Sciaenidae).
  8. (Australia, slang) A tip; a piece of information.
    • ‘he is the darndest little speaker we got, so better sit there and listen to him while he gives you the drum and if you clean out your earholes you might get a bit of sense into your heads.’1985, Peter Carey, Illywhacker, Faber and Faber, published 2003, page 258
  9. (obsolete, slang) The ear.

Verb

drum (third-person singular simple present drums, present participle drumming, simple past and past participle drummed)

  1. (intransitive) To beat a drum.
  2. (ambitransitive) To beat with a rapid succession of strokes.
    • The ruffed grouse drums with his wings.
    • drumming with his fingers on the arm of his chair1824, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], Tales of a Traveller, (please specify |part=1 to 4), Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea, […], →OCLC
  3. (transitive) To drill or review in an attempt to establish memorization.
    • He’s still trying to drum Spanish verb conjugations into my head.
    • Those long ago memories of gnawing sexuality clashing against drummed in prejudice.1978 December 9, Pat M. Kuras, “A Splice of Lesbian Life”, in Gay Community News, volume 6, number 20, page 11
  4. To throb, as the heart.
    • Now, heart, […]thou shalt drum no more.1690, [John] Dryden, Don Sebastian, King of Portugal: […], London: […] Jo. Hindmarsh, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page number)
  5. To go about, as a drummer does, to gather recruits, to draw or secure partisans, customers, etc.; used with for.
  6. Of various animals, to make a vocalisation or mechanical sound that resembles drumming.
    • "There is the snipe drumming also. We shall have it fine!" he added, with an air of conviction.1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 85

Noun (2)

drum (plural drums)

  1. (archaic) A small hill or ridge of hills.

Noun (3)

drum (plural drums)

  1. (historical) A social gathering or assembly held in the evening.
    • Another misfortune which befel poor Sophia, was the company of Lord Fellamar, whom she met at the opera, and who attended her to the drum.
    • [H]e was engaged in a partie of cards, at a drum in the house of a certain lady of quality […].1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC
  2. (UK, slang) A person's home; a house or other building, especially when insalubrious; a tavern, a brothel.

Noun (4)

drum (plural drums)

  1. (informal) A drumstick (of chicken, turkey, etc).
    • Add, thinly sliced, 1/2 to 1 onion and 2 cloves of garlic also sliced, your choice of protein – chicken or turkey breast, or low fat beef, veal, lamb or pork, cut in pieces, or skinless chicken drums, and probably a little water. Then add 1/2 a cup of ...2006, Helene Andreu, Dance, movemet, and nutrition, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 138
    • In a large frying pan, add some canola oil and half of the chicken drums and brown them on both sides. Repeat the procedure until all drums are browned. Place them in a medium baking pan. To the browned chicken drums, add sliced onion, ...2010, Nadejda Reilly, Ukrainian Cuisine with an American Touch and Ingredients, →ISBN, page 253

Proper noun capitalized: Drum

Drum (countable and uncountable, plural Drums)

  1. A surname.
  2. A settlement (Mains of Drum) in Aberdeenshire council area, Scotland, near Drum Castle (OS grid ref NO8099).
  3. A mountain in Conwy borough, Wales (OS grid ref SH7069).
  4. A village in County Monaghan, Ireland.
  5. A civil parish and townland in County Roscommon, Ireland.
  6. An unincorporated community in Bollinger County, Missouri, USA, named after the Drum family.

drum meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

drum in Hindi

musical instrument
ड्रम ḍram, ढोल ḍhol

drum in Tamil

மேளம், முரசு, பேரிகை, மிருதங்கம், மத்தளம், துந்துபி

drum in Marathi

ढोल, ड्रम

drum in Urdu

musical instrument
ڈرم ḍram, ڈھول ḍhol
More languagesFewer languages
drum in Bengali
ঢোল ḍhōl
drum in Telugu
నరగ naraga, దుందుభి dundubhi, తోలువాద్యము tōluvādyamu
drum in Malayalam
ചെണ്ട ceṇṭa, വീപ്പ vīppa, കൊട്ടുക koṭṭuka
drum in Kannada
ತಮ್ಮಟೆ, ಪರೆ, ಹರೆ, ತಂಬಟ
drum in Punjabi
ڈھول ḍhol
drum in Gujarati
ઢોલ ḍhol, પીપ pīp
drum in Odia
ଢାପ ḍhāpa
drum in Sanskrit
दुन्दुभि dundubhí
drum in Sinhala
බෙර bera
drum in Assamese
ঢোল dhül
drum in Nepali
डङका ḍaṅkā
drum in Pashto
تمبل támbal, ډمبک ḍambák
drum in Tagalog
tambol
drum in Arabic
طَبْل ṭabl, طَبْلَة ṭabla
drum in Malay
gendang, bergendang
drum in Indonesian
drum, gendang
drum in Persian
طبل tabl, تمبک tombak, دهل dohol, تبیر tabir
drum in Thai
กลอง glɔɔng
drum in Vietnamese
trống
drum in Myanmar
ပတ် pat

Examples of drum in a sentence

  • The group played huge drums placed overhead, along with flutes and a kotolike zither.2008 January 15, Jon Pareles, “To See (and Hear) the World in Five Hours: Unique Sounds Ripe for Import”, in The New York Times:
  • 'Ten o'clock, and you are lighted as for a drum!1898, Stanley John Weyman, chapter III, in The Castle Inn:
  • I grab a new chopstick and when I get back there's a chicken drum on my plate.2016, Melanie Mah, The Sweetest One, Cormorant Books, →ISBN:
  • To stir the whole, he used a chicken drum.2016, Astroglo DeCerveau, A Book of Good and Bad Things, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN:

All 40 example sentences with drum

Synonyms of drum

Forms of drum

Noun
pluraldrums
Verb
third-person singular presentdrums
present participledrumming
past participledrummed
pastdrummed
Proper noun
pluralDrums

Past tense of drum: drummed

Plural of drum: drums

Origin of drum

Perhaps back-formation from drumslade (“drummer”), from Middle Dutch trommelslach (“drumbeat”), from trommel (“drum”) + slach (“beat”) (Dutch slag). Or perhaps borrowed directly from a continental Germanic language; compare Middle Dutch tromme (“drum”), Middle Low German trumme (“drum”) et al. Compare also Middle High German trumme, trumbe (“drum”), Old High German trumba (“trumpet”). Compare Ancient Greek τῠ́μπᾰνον (tŭ́mpănon, “kettledrum”) whence Modern English timbre.

From Irish druim, Scottish Gaelic druim (“back, ridge”).

Unknown.

Words formed from drum

Phrases with drum

66 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with drum

42 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about drum

What does drum mean?
Drum means a percussive musical instrument spanned with a thin covering on at least one end for striking, forming an acoustic chamber; a membranophone.
What is drum in Hindi?
Drum in Hindi is ड्रम (ḍram), ढोल (ḍhol). See Drum meaning in Hindi.
How do you use drum in a sentence?
The group played huge drums placed overhead, along with flutes and a kotolike zither.
What part of speech is drum?
Drum can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce drum?
Drum is pronounced /ˈdɹʌm/.
What is the plural of drum?
The plural of drum is drums.

Words near drum in the dictionary

  1. Drukarsh
  2. Drukpa
  3. Drukpa Kagyu
  4. Drukpas
  5. druks
  6. drum
  7. drum 'n' bass
  8. drum and bass
  9. drum belly
  10. drum brake
  11. drum brakes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: drum (page history and authors); Drum (page history and authors); drum (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); drum (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); తోలువాద్యము (Telugu) (page history and authors); drum (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ڈھول (Punjabi) (page history and authors); ઢોલ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); डङका (Nepali) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-drum.ogg, EN-AU ck1 drum.ogg.

Cite this entry: “drum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.