thrum
/θɹʌm/US/θɹʌm/
thrum noun: a thrumming sound; a hum or vibration.
Noun (1)
thrum (plural thrums)
- A thrumming sound; a hum or vibration.
- a profusion of insects, which produced a continuous thrum2020 February 25, Christopher de Bellaigue, “The end of farming?”, in The Guardian
- Pungent sweat and heatedly trodden grass, fumes of tea and porter, thrum of hooves from the paddock, the strikings-up and dyings-down of the band all fused into an extreme for Antonia, whose own senses, boastful, stood up to it.1955, Elizabeth Bowen, chapter II, in A World of Love, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, part I, page 40
- A spicy taste; a tang.
- The trailblazing Oaxacan chef Alejandro Ruiz […] has spiked this black-bean sauce with a hidden depth charge of flavor: patches of foliage from a local avocado tree. The leaves electrify the sauce with an unexpected thrum of black licorice.2014 October 25, Jeff Gordinier, “In search of the perfect taco”, in T: The New York Times Style Magazine (international edition), page 100
Verb (1)
thrum (third-person singular simple present thrums, present participle thrumming, simple past and past participle thrummed)
- To cause a steady rhythmic vibration in (something), usually by plucking.
- She watched as he thrummed the guitar strings absently.
- To make a monotonous drumming noise.
- to thrum on a table
- They were hardly seated, and I had hardly waved good-by to Denver, before he was off, the big motor thrumming with immense birdlike power.1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, chapter 8, in On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC, part 3
Noun (2)
thrum (plural thrums)
- The ends of the warp threads in a loom which remain unwoven attached to the loom when the web is cut.
- The twister is given a harness filled with thrums or short ends of the old warp which has been returned from the looms. These thrums of silk are all that remain of the last warps.1899, Belding Bros. & Co, Silk Culture and Manufacturing Shown Progressively (page 43)
- A fringe made of such threads.
- Any short piece of leftover thread or yarn; a tuft or tassel.
- A threadlike part of a flower; a stamen.
- A tuft, bundle, or fringe of any threadlike structures, as hairs on a leaf, fibers of a root.
- A bundle of minute blood vessels, a plexus.
- Small pieces of rope yarn used for making mats or mops.
- A mat made of canvas and tufts of yarn.
- A shove out of place; a small displacement or fault along a seam.
Adjective
thrum (not comparable)
- Made of or woven from thrum.
- In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for the legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in the husband, he seldom comes there:—in some dark and dismal room behind, he sits commerce-less, in his thrum nightcap, the same rough son of Nature that Nature left...1768, Laurence Sterne, “The Husband: Paris”, in A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
Verb (2)
thrum (third-person singular simple present thrums, present participle thrumming, simple past and past participle thrummed)
- To furnish with thrums; to insert tufts in; to fringe.
- are we born to thrum caps or pick straw?1644-1646, Francis Quarles, Boanerges and Barnabas—Wine and Oyle for […] afflicted Soules
- To insert short pieces of rope-yarn or spun yarn in.
- to thrum a piece of canvas, or a mat, thus making a rough or tufted surface
Noun (3)
thrum (plural thrums)
- A threepenny bit.
- Synonyms:
- thrummer
thrum meaning in Tamil and Urdu
thrum in Tamil
- விரலால் மீட்டுதல், விரலால் சுண்டுதல், வெறுப்பை ஏற்படுத்தல், அதிர்வலைகளை உண்டாக்குதல்
thrum in Urdu
- گن گنانا, بےتک گانا
Examples of thrum in a sentence
- Around them, the air thrummed with the kind of voltaic wailing to power up the darkest night.
- Fortunately, a waterfall thrums down the nearby mountains and forms a natural swimming pool at the entrance.
- Vinayakram, an expert on the ghatam, an earthenware pot played with thrummed fingers or open palms.
Synonyms of thrum
Forms of thrum
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | thrums |
| alternative form | thrumb |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | thrums |
| present participle | thrumming |
| past participle | thrummed |
| past | thrummed |
Origin of thrum
Imitative.
From Middle English thrum, throm (> Anglo-French trome), from Old English *þrum (found in tungeþrum (“ligament of the tongue”)) from Proto-Germanic *þrumą. Cognate with German Trumm, Trümmer and Old Norse þrǫmr (“edge, brim”), and more distantly to Latin termen.
Apparently a reduced form of the stem of threepenny/threepence through a sequence such as /ˈθrɛp(ə)n-/ > /ˈθrʊp(ə)m-/ > /ˈθrʊm-/ (> /ˈθɹʌm-/).
Words formed from thrum
Words that rhyme with thrum
Questions about thrum
- What does thrum mean?
- Thrum means a thrumming sound; a hum or vibration.
- What is thrum in Tamil?
- Thrum in Tamil is விரலால் மீட்டுதல், விரலால் சுண்டுதல், வெறுப்பை ஏற்படுத்தல். See Thrum meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is thrum?
- Thrum can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce thrum?
- Thrum is pronounced /θɹʌm/ (UK).
- What is the plural of thrum?
- The plural of thrum is thrums.
Words near thrum in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: thrum (page history and authors); thrum (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); thrum (Urdu Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-thrum.wav.
Cite this entry: “thrum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thrum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.