tympans

Noun

tympan (plural tympans)

1. A piece of cloth padding placed under the platen of a letterpress to distribute the pressure on the sheet being printed.
   • As the pressman returns the inkballs to the inkstone, the journeyman closes the frisket and tympan.2000, Richard L. Saunders, Printing in Deseret
2. The stretched membrane of a drum.
3. A percussion instrument consisting of a hollow cylinder with such a membrane at each end.
4. A tympanum.
5. The tympanum of the ear.
   • But soon I grew used to these sounds, and then I understood as well as ever, that is to say fully one half of what won its way past my tympan.1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC