tympany
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Coined based on Ancient Greek τύμπανον (túmpanon).
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /ˈtɪmpəni/
- Hyphenation: tym‧pa‧ny
- Homophones: timpani, tympani
Noun
[edit]tympany (countable and uncountable, plural tympanies)
- The sound made by beating a drum.
- 1643, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: […], London: […] T[homas] P[aine] and M[atthew] S[immons] […], →OCLC, page 39:
- [T]he vvoman ſet before the Sanctuary vvith her head uncover'd, vvas adjur'd by the Prieſt to ſvvear vvhether ſhe vvas fals or no; and conſtrain'd to drink that bitter vvater vvith an undoubted curſe of rottenneſſe, and tympany to follovv, unleſſe ſhe vvere innocent.
- (medicine) Tympanites (distention of the abdomen).
- Inflation; conceit; bombast; turgidness.
- 1682, John Dryden, Mac Flecknoe:
- Thine's a tympany of sense.
- 1828, Thomas De Quincey, “Elements of Rhetoric”, in Blackwood's Magazine:
- Dr. Johnson, for his triads and his antithetic balances, he taxes more than once with a plethoric and tautologic tympany of sentence