Word.ws English Dictionary

tom-toms

tom-toms is the plural of tom-tom.

Meaning of tom-tom

Noun

tom-tom (plural tom-toms)

  1. 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
  2. (usually) Any cylindrical drum, with no snare; part of a drum kit.

See all 3 meanings of tom-tom

Questions about tom-toms

What is tom-toms the plural of?
Tom-toms is the plural of tom-tom.

Words near tom-toms in the dictionary

  1. tom-tom drums
  2. tom-tommed
  3. tom-tommer
  4. tom-tommers
  5. tom-tomming
  6. tom-toms
  7. Tom-turd
  8. toma
  9. tomacco
  10. tomaccoes
  11. tomacula

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tom-toms (page history and authors); 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.

Last updated:

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