tom-tom
tom-tom noun: a small drum, often one of a joined pair, beaten with the hands, frequently associated with tribal cultures. Also the alternative form of tam-tam.
Noun
tom-tom (plural tom-toms)
- A small drum, often one of a joined pair, beaten with the hands, frequently associated with tribal cultures.
- [T]he Rattle Rale had got information that a party was coming from Badula to look for Hadje, three days before, and had assembled the Country by beat of tom tom, and that those who had conducted Hadje to the stranger had that morning returned: he spoke of the stranger as a 'Deyo' (a God).1818 September 5, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, page 3, column 1
- The passage would have been agreeable enough but for the dreadful "tom-toms," or wooden drums, which are beaten incessantly while the men are rowing. Two men were engaged constantly at them, making a fearful din the whole voyage.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 70
- Any cylindrical drum, with no snare; part of a drum kit.
Verb
tom-tom (third-person singular simple present tom-toms, present participle tom-tomming, simple past and past participle tom-tommed)
- To play the tom-toms.
Also used as
tom-tom is also the alternative form of tam-tam.
Forms of tom-tom
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | tom-toms |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | tom-toms |
| present participle | tom-tomming |
| past participle | tom-tommed |
| past | tom-tommed |
Origin of tom-tom
From Hindi टमटम (ṭamṭam, “the sound of a drum”), and similar terms in related or nearby languages (as Punjabi ਟਮ ਟਮ (ṭam ṭam), Gujarati ટમટમ (ṭamṭam), Bengali টমটম (ṭomṭom), Sinhalese ටම් ටම් (ṭam ṭam), Tamil தம் தம் (tam tam), Malayalam തം തം (taṁ taṁ), Tibetan ཐོམ ཐོམ (thom thom)); ultimately of onomatopoeic origin, with reduplication. Early evidence is from Anglo-Indian sources.
Words formed from tom-tom
Phrases with tom-tom
Questions about tom-tom
- What does tom-tom mean?
- Tom-tom means a small drum, often one of a joined pair, beaten with the hands, frequently associated with tribal cultures.
- What part of speech is tom-tom?
- Tom-tom can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of tom-tom?
- The plural of tom-tom is tom-toms.
Words near tom-tom in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tom-tom (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.
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Cite this entry: “tom-tom.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tom-tom. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.