Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Drum   /drəm/   Listen
Drum

noun
1.
A musical percussion instrument; usually consists of a hollow cylinder with a membrane stretched across each end.  Synonyms: membranophone, tympan.
2.
The sound of a drum.
3.
A bulging cylindrical shape; hollow with flat ends.  Synonym: barrel.
4.
A cylindrical metal container used for shipping or storage of liquids.  Synonym: metal drum.
5.
A hollow cast-iron cylinder attached to the wheel that forms part of the brakes.  Synonym: brake drum.
6.
Small to medium-sized bottom-dwelling food and game fishes of shallow coastal and fresh waters that make a drumming noise.  Synonym: drumfish.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Drum" Quotes from Famous Books



... tetanus bacillus, which is a perfect anaerobe, is widely distributed in nature and can be isolated from garden earth, dung-heaps, and stable refuse. It is a slender rod-shaped bacillus, with a single large spore at one end giving it the shape of a drum-stick (Fig. 26). The spores, which are the active agents in producing tetanus, are highly resistant to chemical agents, retain their vitality in a dry condition, and even survive ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... him, but she hears him moaning and rolling on the floor from pain. "His guts have burst," as he says; the pain is so violent that he cannot utter a single word, and can only draw in his breath and clack his teeth like the rattling of a drum: ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... tall bearskins and glittering bayonets he caught the flourish of energetic drumsticks. The big drum gave forth its clamor with window-shaking insistence; it seemed to be the summons of power that all else should stand aside. On they came, these spruce Guards, each man a marching machine, trained to strut and pose exactly as his fellows. There was a sense of omnipotence in their rhythmic ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... we'd have had a perfectly good chat if it hadn't been for Doris. Such a restless young female! First she wants to drum something out on the piano herself. Then she must have Vee come show her how it ought to go. Next she wants to practice a new fancy dance, and so on. She keeps Westy trottin' around, and Vee comin' and goin', ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... institution of the town crier. It consists usually of three native police, armed with most ferocious-looking revolvers, and preceded by a temporary guest of municipal hospitality from the local calabozo. This citizen, generally ragged and dirty and smoking a big cigar, is provided with a drum which he beats lustily. The people flock to doors and windows, and the curious and the little boys and girls who are carrying their baby relations cross saddle on their hips, fall in behind as for a circus procession. At every corner they ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... have so long practised the motions of battle, and who have given in the park so many proofs of their dexterity and activity, who have at least learned to distinguish the different sounds of the drum, and know the faces and voices of the subaltern officers, at least, might have been imagined better qualified for an attempt upon a foreign kingdom, than those who were necessarily strangers to every part of the military operations, and might have been sent upon our ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... my whistle!" said Juan, and he blew the horn. "And to show you how big our stomachs are, hear us beat them!" and he beat the drum. The outlaws were so frightened that they ran away. Some of them even jumped ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... and noise. And I've seen the furniture"—he pronounced it furchinur—"dancing about in the day-nursery when it thought it was alone, and I've heard it talking at night. I know the big cupboard's voice quite well. It's just like a drum, only rougher...." ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood

... came up in irregular array mounted on dromedaries without housing. At their head rode one with a white lettered green flag, and beating an immense drum. They were armed with long spears of Indian bamboo, garnished below the slender points with swinging tufts of ostrich feathers. Each carried a woman behind him disdainful of a veil. The feminine screams of exultation rose high above the yells of the men, helping not a little to the recklessness with ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... the drum—it rattles so loud! There's no such stirring sound Is heard the wide world round, As ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... we've beaten the wooden drum's, Sa femisai o nu'u, sa taia o pate, Is expounded there by the justice, Ua Atuatuvale a le faamasino e, The chief justice, the terrified justice, Le faamasino sili, le faamasino se, Is on the point of running away the ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... crowd the roadway, with the animals just named caparisoned in a gaudy, harlequin style, accompanied by unskilled musicians on foot, whose qualifications evidently consist in being able to make the greatest amount of noise upon a drum, fife, or horn, which are the three instruments employed on these occasions. Some of the white horses in the processions are painted in parts, sky-blue, and some are decked with saffron-yellow. In the ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... with the aid of a brush and paint-pot, is employed in the distance whitening the targets, softly whistling in quick-march time and in drum-and-fife manner that he must and will go back again to the girl he ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... seriously concerning Lusitania incident. His influence will, in any case be exercised in favor of peace. This influence is great, as Wilson depends on Bryan for his re-election. Roosevelt, on the other hand, is beating the patriotic drum, in order to win over the Jingo elements. It is significant of Bryan's real views that he regrets that we did not support his well-known attempt at mediation; therefore, I again recommend that we should endeavor ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... and strain the eyes, And crack the voice in rivalship, the crowd Inviting; with buffoons against buffoons Grimacing, writhing, screaming,—him who grinds The hurdy-gurdy, at the fiddle weaves, 700 Rattles the salt-box, thumps the kettle-drum, And him who at the trumpet puffs his cheeks, The silver-collared Negro with his timbrel, Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys, Blue-breeched, pink-vested, with high-towering plumes.—705 All moveables of wonder, from ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... sides, and are either dome vaulted or have cross-groined vaults. The combination of a cross-groined vault with four niches springing from the vaulting level is particularly effective. In S. Saviour in the Chora (p. 307) these chambers are covered with drum domes, pierced with windows, but ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... voice. Looking at their footmarks on the ground they seem to throw an almost straight track, neither splayed nor in-toed, and to set their feet down with a gentle forward pressure, rather like the Australian's stealthy footfall. Talking among themselves, or waiting for friends, they did not drum with their fingers, fiddle with their feet, or feel the hair on their faces. These things seem trivial enough, but when breeds are in the making everything is worth while. A man told me once—but I never tried the experiment—that ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... Milanese territory, the Holy See was gaining ground in the Romagna, where no further opposition was offered to Caesar's conquest. So the runners who brought the news were rewarded with valuable presents, and it was published throughout the whole town of Rome to the sound of the trumpet and drum. The war-cry of Louis, France, France, and that of the Orsini, Orso, Orso, rang through all the streets, which in the evening were illuminated, as though Constantinople or Jerusalem had been taken. And the pope gave the people ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... dey said niggers had to be free. De papers said if dey could not be freedom by good men dere would be freedom by blood. Dey fighted an' kept on fightin' a long time. Den de Yankees come. [HW correction: New paragraph] I heard dem beat de drum. Marster tole us we wus free but mother an' father stayed on with Marster. He promised 'em sumptin, but he give 'em nothin'. When de ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... afterwards, when I came to converse with different Africans, I found they had many horses amongst them, and much larger than those I then saw. We were not many days in the merchant's custody before we were sold after their usual manner, which is this:—On a signal given,(as the beat of a drum) the buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamour with which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano

... the country; he follows the drum and the flag. He may chance to be killed with a double cannon before he come home again. But what's ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... the lines & every regt. in the brigade on Long Island, exclusive of their quarter & rear guards, are to mount a picket every evening at retreat beating at sun set, consisting of one Capt. 2 Subs, 1 drum & 1 fife & 50 rank & file—they are to lay upon their arms, & be ready to turn out ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... and a Highland plaid sash lined with white silk; and headed the very first captain's guard mounted for the Pretender at Carlisle. A Manchester man deposed to seeing at the Exchange a sergeant, with a drum, beating up for volunteers ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... where our riches have birth. We bring thee our love and our garlands for tribute, With gifts of thy opulent giving we come; O source of our manifold gladness, we hail thee, We praise thee, O Prithvi, with cymbal and drum. ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu

... vanished, snuffed out in an hour and, day after day, the Karluk flung herself at mocking seas that pounded her bows with blows that sounded like the noise of a giant's drum. The sun was never seen. Through daylight hours the schooner wrestled with the elements in a ghastly, purplish twilight, lifting under double reefs over great waves that raised spuming crests to overwhelm her, and were ridden down, hissing and roaring, burying ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... only to make a noise that was amazing. The method of its surprising operation was like the stuttering of a stick when it is rubbed endwise on a box; but as this was a board and as it operated against a rumbly shack, it reverberated like a giant drum; it was an excellent apparatus for making artificial thunder. At her very first effort it gave a little jump and made a noise sufficient to put all the silence on the prairie to flight. She let go at once. More deliberate efforts brought forth ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... occurred during our passage home. It was in the season of the year when severe gales are met with on the Atlantic, but the brig Joseph proved a good sea boat, tight as a drum, and could lie to or scud without danger of being overwhelmed by the combing waves. On this passage a little incident occurred off the Orkney Islands, that will convey some idea of the dangers to which those are subjected whose home ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... and salutes were fired. The people had been waiting for us ever since the previous evening, we were told—some of them, indeed, coming from Vadsoe—and they had seized the opportunity to get up a subscription to provide a big drum for the town band, the "North Pole." And here we were entertained at a sumptuous banquet, with speeches, and champagne flowing in streams, ere we bade ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... of a rude drum that made a startling noise, the braves rose, threw down their blankets and displayed their holiday attire of paint, fringes, beads, and dressed deerskins with great headdresses of feathers. Another ring formed round them. One brave, an old man, came forward, and gesticulating wildly, went through ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... ceiling away, light entered the cage from a dirty skylight far above. Just over his head a heavy iron grating covered the cage, barring him in, but high up he could see the great drum, from which the cable slowly unwound as the car descended. He was in an elevator, but this knowledge gave him small comfort. Cage, room, or elevator—call it what he chose—it was relentlessly descending into the ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... spirits of the air who reveal to the medicine-men the wonders they claim to know in a priestly way. Such revelations are made to them in visions as they sit and drum and sing when endeavoring to discover some new cure for an affliction, or to initiate new customs that might be pleasing to the gods. The priests often take a medicine skin of this sort and go out into the mountains, where they ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... the war drum throbs no longer, and the battle-flags are furl'd In the Parliament of man, the ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association

... of Cybele, or Rhea, in Phrygia, who celebrated her worship with dances, to the sound of the drum and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... quality in the American character. I was informed that these stories, forming so important a feature of American dinners, are the product mainly of drummers and certain prominent men; but why men that drum are more skilful in story inventing I failed to learn. President Lincoln and a lawyer named Daniel Webster originated a large percentage of the current stories. It is difficult to understand exactly ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... was not. Agreed more emphatically and with half-awed wonder when she saw the donkey puff and quiver on its anchor cable, as the hauling line spooled up on the drum. On the outer end of that line snaked a sixty-foot stick, five feet across the butt, but it came down to the chute head, brushing earth and brush and small trees aside as if they were naught. Once the big log caromed against ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... out with such a pack of supplies that when the regiment halted each man was forced to kneel and let a comrade take off or put on his knapsack. And then the march through the streets—every man known to scores in the throng! The brisk, high-stepping drum corps rat-a-tatting at intervals; then tempests of cheers, flashing banners and patriotic symbols at every window; tears, laughter, humorous cries, jokes, sobbing outbreaks. The whole city was in march as the Caribees reached the thronged main thoroughfare. Ready ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... At first, I told him everything. He had always let me go to any and all religious gatherings without objection. He even laughingly told me I could don the Salvation lassie's bonnet and beat a drum in the street, if I wanted to; but when it came to the 'Mormons,' O, he was angry, and forbade me from ever going to their meetings or reading their literature. I ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... of the oak 58 touches it, as is also the bat by a leaf of the plane-tree. The elephant flees before the ram, and the lion before the cock, and seals from the rattling of beans that are being pounded, and the tiger from the sound of the drum. Many other examples could be given, but that we may not seem to dwell longer than is necessary on this subject, we conclude by saying that since the same things are pleasant to some and unpleasant to others, and the pleasure ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick

... preserved so much liberty of mind as enabled him to jest alike with good or bad fortune. He treated politics, war, and government with gaiety. The tone of his voice was sonorous, manly, and vibrating; and was distinctly heard above the noise of the drum, and the clash of the bayonet. His oratory was straightforward, clever, striking; his words were effective in council, in confidence, and intimacy: they soothed and insinuated themselves like those of a woman. He was persuasive, for his soul, mobile ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... my body, but my blind eyes cannot see it: The moon is within me, and so is the sun. The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me; but my ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)

... kind beat on Julie's mind as she sat dreamily on her bench among the Swiss meadows. How natural that in the end they should sweep her by reaction into imaginations wholly indifferent—of a drum-and-trumpet history, in the ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... academies, they would then have two tribunes whence the good word would fall on the multitude with more weight. They might be counted on. When Nougarede began to come to the Wednesday reunions he was as empty as a drum, and if he spoke brilliantly on no matter what subject with an imperturbable eloquence, it was to say nothing. In Glady's first volume were words learnedly arranged to please the ears and the eyes. Now, ideas sustained the discourse of the advocate, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... so have set? Why not have died when swords swept their lightnings about me, when the glorious thunders of battle rolled around and sulphurous blasts enveloped, when the air was full of the bray of bugle and beat of drum, of shout and shriek, exultation and agony? Why not have gone with the crowd of souls reeking with daring and desire? Why, oh, why thus left alone to wither? Why still hangs that sun above me, yet wrapt and veiled and utterly obscured ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... summer. There was a "weavers' walk" and five or six others, the "women's walk" being the most picturesque. These were processions of the members of benefit societies through the square and wynds, and all the women walked in white, to the number of a hundred or more, behind the Tillie-drum band, Thrums having in those days ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... village-church, with pinnacles, And light grey tow'r, appears, while to the right An amphitheatre of oaks extends Its sweep, till, more abrupt, a wooded knoll, Where once a castle frown'd, closes the scene. And see, an infant troop, with flags and drum, Are marching o'er that bridge, beneath the woods, On—to the table spread upon the lawn, Raising their little hands when grace is said; Whilst she, who taught them to lift up their hearts In prayer, and to "remember, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various

... very hour there was excitement at Fort Emory. At eight o'clock the colonel was on his piazza looking with gloomy eyes over the distant rows of empty barracks. The drum-major with the band at his heels came stalking out over the grassy parade, and the post adjutant, girt with sash and sword-belt, stood in front of his office awaiting the sergeant-major, who was unaccountably ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... eccentricities of the singer, give it a separate and special character. One characteristic of Shoka songs—as of so many other Oriental tunes—is that they have no rounded ending, and this, to my ears, rather spoiled them. A similar abrupt break is a feature of their dances and their drum-beating. The song suddenly stops in the middle of the air with a curious grating sound of the voice, and I could not obtain any entirely satisfactory explanation of this: the only answer given me was that the ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... Grandfather had told the story of his great chair, there chanced to be a rainy day. Our friend Charley, after disturbing the household with beat of drum and riotous shouts, races up and down the staircase, overturning of chairs, and much other uproar, began to feel the quiet and confinement within doors intolerable. But as the rain came down in a flood, the little fellow was hopelessly a prisoner, and now stood with sullen ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Ferguson," the Captain Maid quietly, and at the first tap of the drum the sailors, who had been expecting the order, ran to their stations. As they gained them the little battery on shore opened fire. Although the distance was but a hundred yards, only three of the balls hit the hull, the others passing ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... caught and killed a hopping flea, His sister's children came to me: One with drum my ears did pierce, One was fluting loud and fierce, Then they danced me, made me sing, Like a monkey in a ring. Come O Deeby, come I pray, Bring the Doctor right away! Peace on your heart feel no alarm, You have not had the ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... falls, swells and dwindles away in chords and harmonies, until presently every amphibian is alert and tremulous with emotion and emulation. If an attempt is made to analyse the music, you may discover sounds sharp as those of the fife, deep and hollow as drum-beats, sonorous and acrid, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... away. And lo! with a summons sonorous Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows a drum beat. Thronged erelong was the church with men. Without, in the churchyard, Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and hung on the headstones Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest. Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow

... without drum or trumpet, maid and baggage and all, having dismissed her cook and shut up the flat. It was incredible. I wandered aimlessly about Chelsea trying to make up my mind what to do. Should I go to Paris and bring her back by main force? ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... and it has more photographing than any amount of musical instruments. It does sound a drum and a calendar. It does show piercing likeness to it all and it is not leathery, ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein

... the education of the conscience; this Vaudrey, bruised by life, overthrown by his vices, was there under the soft light of his lamp, looking with staring eye, as a being who wishes to die contemplates the edge of an abyss, looking at that printed paper soliciting subscriptions, beating the big drum of the promoter in order to entrap the ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... stay away! Or perhaps they go to see a football match. Well, who shall blame them, after the kind of work which they have been forced to do during the week? I always think that if only the Church followed the crowd, instead of, metaphorically speaking, banging the big drum outside their churches and begging them to come inside, they would "get hold" of their flock far more effectively. After all, why should religion be so divorced from the joy of life? Death is important, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... which I was extremely proficient, and would reward me for my gambits with excellent cigars. The major of the battalion took lessons of French from me while at breakfast, and was sometimes so obliging as to have me join him at the meal. Chevenix was his name. He was stiff as a drum-major and selfish as an Englishman, but a fairly conscientious pupil and a fairly upright man. Little did I suppose that his ramrod body and frozen face would, in the end, step in between me and all my dearest wishes; that upon this precise, regular, icy soldier-man my fortunes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... was Atys the Lydian, says Lucian, who, having been mutilated, first established the Mysteries of Rhea, and taught the Phrygians, the Lydians, and the people of Samothrace to celebrate them. Rhea, like Cybele, was represented drawn by lions, bearing a drum, and crowned with flowers. According to Varro, Cybele represented the earth. She partook of the characteristics of Minerva, Venus, the Moon, Diana, Nemesis, and the Furies; was clad in precious stones; and her High Priest wore a robe of purple ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... in the village below. The hum of supplementary speeches to the excited crowds that still lingered about came to their ears, mingled with cheers from throat rapidly growing hoarse, and the throb and wail of fife and drum. Then, uplifted on the voices of hundreds who sang it as only men, and men swayed by powerful emotions can, rose the ever-glorious "Star-Spangled Banner," loftiest and most inspiring of national hymns. Through its long, forceful measures, which ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... arms reversed, And the slow beating of the muffled drum, And funeral marches, bring our hero home These stormy woods where his young heart was nursed Ring with a trumpet burst Of jubilant music, as if he who lies With shrouded face, and lips all white and dumb Were a crowned conqueror ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean

... but these features were merged and compacted into the snow on his coat, and as his cap came low and was covered with snow too, he, with the little fragment of countenance that remained, the flesh whereof had the colour and toughness of the skin of a drum that has been well beaten, submitted as terrible an object as mortal sight ever rested on. I say I did not like to touch him, and one reason was I feared he would tumble; and though I know not why I should have dreaded this, yet the apprehension of it so worked in me that for ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... diameter, so that the motion of the waves does not perceptibly influence the level of the water in the interior of the cylinder. It is attached to a copper ribbon, B, whose other extremity is fixed to the drum, T. The ribbon winds around the latter in the rising motion of the float, owing to a spiral spring arranged so as to act upon the drum. The tension of this spring goes on increasing in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various

... the day when the battalion, with drum-major and band at its head, marched away with colors bravely flying, and boarded the train at the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... for, after the first few minutes of our triumphal progress, my weariness returned in greater force, and it all became a blurred dream of lights and glitter, trampling horses, the swaying elephants, and the deafening clamour of trumpet and drum. ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... from a country in which the Irish factions and theological enmities had always had their counterpart; his father, a Presbyterian Minister, came of Ulster stock. All the blood in him instinctively responded to the tap of the Orange drum. As far back as January 27, 1911, he had urged armed resistance ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... dealt next with a little ball of bright feathers. Then a last helper came to them, riding on a jaguar, and carrying a large drum and a flute from which his music issued in the shape of flames. This champion was quite black, but he was striped with blue paint, and golden feathers grew all over his left leg. He wore a red coronet in the shape of a rose, a short skirt of green paper, and white sandals; and he carried ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... other chiefs stood near her. The queen was pale, but her dark eyes were resolute. She smiled when I looked at her, to give me encouragement. Her subjects were assembled round the pool in a triple line. Presently the beating of a war-drum announced the arrival of a procession, which advanced slowly to the pool, bearing a litter upon which, bound hand and foot, was stretched the unfortunate Van Luck. When they had come to the edge of the pool they set the litter ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... absolutely mustn't let those chaps get in front of me,' he thought. So many yards before the first line of trenches, so many yards to the second line, and there stop. So his rehearsals had gone; it was the performance now! Another minute before the terrific racket of the drum-fire should become the curtain-fire, which would advance before them. He ran his eye down the trench. The man next him was licking his two first fingers, as if he might be going to bowl at cricket. Further down, a man was feeling his puttees. A voice said: "Wot price the orchestra nah!" He saw ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... new year in may enter. They will just have broken out, joyfully; and Richard will dash in to kiss Meg before Toby, and have the first kiss of the new year (he'll get it too); and the neighbours will crowd round with good wishes; and a band will strike up gaily (Toby knows a Drum in private); and the altered circumstances, and the ringing of the bells, and the jolly musick, will so transport the old fellow that he will lead off a country dance forthwith in an entirely new step, consisting of his old familiar trot. Then quoth the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... they drew nearer he exclaimed: "Look! They've got the Pelican sewed up tighter than a drum. Looks like Mascola hasn't tumbled on to the ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeoman's sons; inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as have been asked twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as life hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a culverin worse than a struck deer or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts in butter, with hearts in their breasts no bigger than pins' heads; and they bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of slaves as ragged as ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... Straight from the ball to bed he goes, Whilst Petersburg from slumber deep The drum already doth arouse. The shopman and the pedlar rise And to the Bourse the cabman plies; The Okhtenka with pitcher speeds,(15) Crunching the morning snow she treads; Morning awakes with joyous sound; The shutters ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... that he did not give definite suggestions for the improvement of the age which he rebuked. "Here," said he, "is a man who beats a big drum under my windows, and when I come running down stairs has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... hear the armed life almost within reach of him, could hear the slings tighten across the bandsman's chest as he heaved the big drum from ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... to some local excitement culminating in a possible riot, be regarded as "disturbing the public peace" then, of course, the Salvationists must plead guilty. As to "making a noise," their mission was to "make a noise," and he flattered himself that the "Big Drum" was not behind-hand, at all events, in that business. As far as "making a noise" was concerned, all processions accompanied by bands aimed at this. The Salvation Army was only in the same boat with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various

... the gold was in Evelyn's white hand. The trumpet blew, the drum beat, the fiddlers swung into a quick, staccato air, and Darden's Audrey, leaving the post which she had touched some seconds in advance of the foremost of those with whom she had raced, came forward to receive ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... inside of any or of each of these, ready still to do battle, stands there, six feet in standard size. There are Pay-Offices, Woolwich Arsenals, there is a Horse-Guards, War-Office, Captain-General; persuasive Sergeants, with tap of drum, recruit in market-towns and villages;—and, on the whole, I say, here is your actual drilled fighting-man; here are your actual Ninety-thousand of such, ready to go into any quarter of the ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... stopped their games, and the Quarter suspended its affairs to welcome the music. Ferval heard rapturous and mocking remarks. "Baki, Baki, the human orchestra!" cried one gossip to another. And the reverberating music swelled, multifarious and amazing as if a military band from piccolo to drum were about to descend the highway. A clatter and bang, a sweet droning and shrill scraping, and then an old man proudly limped through the gateway of the Great Clock. This was the conjurer, this white-haired fellow, who, with fife, cymbals, bells, concertinas,—he wore two ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... the gloom of midnight darkness. Several months lingered slowly away while these men were awaiting their trial. Day after day they heard the tolling of the tocsin, the reverberations of the alarm gun, and the beating of the insurrection drum, as the demon of lawless violence rioted through the streets of the blood-stained metropolis. The execrations of the mob, loud and fiend-like, accompanied the cart of the condemned, as it rumbled upon the pavements above their heads, bearing the victims of popular fury to the guillotine; ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... as you like," he replied. "And look you, young- feller-me-lad, I'll give you half of all the profits I make out of any business you bring me. You don't have to be a lawyer to get clients. Hustle around among your friends and drum up some trade and you'll do almost as well as if you could try cases yourself. For every dollar I earn you get another. ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... beat my little drum; For spring at last has come, And on my parapet, Of chestnut, gummy-wet, Where bees begin to hum, I clink my castanet, And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... Lewis gun is an automatic rifle, firing the same ammunition as the S.-M.-L.-E. rifle, and two Lewis-gun sections are included in each infantry platoon. The rate of fire is increased by the automatic action of the gun, the maximum rate permitting a drum of 47 rounds to be fired in less than ten seconds, while one or two rounds only may be fired if so required. The mobility of the Lewis-gun sections is the same as that of other sections of ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... three kinds of musical instruments used among these tribes. The drum, which is beat at their feasts, dances and games, the tambourin, and a kind of flageolet, made of cane or two pieces of soft wood hollowed out and fastened together with strips of leather. Their tunes are always on a flat key, have ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... in fitful alarm, the sailors threw lifebelts overboard, the deck rumbled like a drum under the crowd's surging rush, steam hissed afflightedly, a woman vented an hysterical cry, and the captain bawled from the bridge ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... and boom of the old Harvard Band, with big Joe Foley banging the drum till it was fit to burst, with Marsh blowing his lungs out on the cornet, and all the other fellows ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... the start, and here they come, And the hoof-strokes roar like a mighty drum Beat by a hand unsteady; They come like a rushing, roaring flood, Hurrah for the speed of the Chester blood; For Acme is making the pace so good There are some of ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson

... on their guests and watched prodigious quantities of food disappear rapidly. When the meal was ended, the dancing began. The Crees shuffled around in a circle, hopping from one foot to the other in time to the beating of a skin drum. The half-breeds and whites danced the jigs and reels the former had brought with them from the Red River country. They took the floor in couples. The men did double-shuffles and cut pigeon wings, moving faster and faster as the fiddler quickened the tune till they gave up at last ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... I tell to thee: Burn thou to the last black ember All my heart has writ for me. Let the fairest flowers surround me, Sunlight laugh about my bed, Let the sweetest of musicians To the door of death be led. Bid them sound no strain of sadness—Muted string or muffled drum; Come to me with songs of gladness—Whirling in the wild waltz come! I would hear—ere yet I hear not—Trembling strings their cadence keep, Chords that quiver: so I also Tremble as I fall asleep. Memories of life and laughter, Memories of earthly ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... been teasing me to do for the last six months—get her a rain-barrel. I tried to get an old oil-cask, but couldn't find one. They make the best rain-barrels. Just burn them out with a flash of good dry shavings, and they are clear from all oily impurities, and tight as a drum." ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur

... so thrust all on together in a hurrey, as they are directed by their Generall. Their Ensigne is the image of S. George. [Sidenote: Horsemen drummes.] The Bulsha Dworaney or chiefe horsemen, haue euery man a small drum of brasse at his saddle bowe, which he striketh when he ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt

... rat-tat of the drum are compared to the metric feet, the anapaest ([Symbols: arsis, arsis, thesis] and ...
— Selections from Erasmus - Principally from his Epistles • Erasmus Roterodamus

... Milwaukee with Mrs. Catt, the national president, as the chief speaker. In June at the time of the Republican National Convention in Chicago the association sent to the great suffrage parade an impressive contingent, accompanied by a G. A. R. drum corps. This year it gave $500 to the Iowa campaign and among its members who assisted there and in campaigns in other States were Mrs. Hooper, Mrs. Haight, Miss Curtis, Mrs. Maud McCreery, Miss Edna Wright and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... have no fame then heare thee name it. Thou fight for a Ladies honour and disarme A gentleman, thou! fence before the pageants And make roome for the porters, when like Elephants They carry once a yeare the Citty Castles, Or goe a feasting with the Drum and foot boyes To the Bankeside and save the Beares a whipping That day thou art cudgeld for thy saucy challenging A sergeant with one eye, that was to much too. Come, Sir, I meane to have a bout ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... had so long lain in the gorge, near the fatal bastion. Forty-three years before, he had buckled on his sword to fight for what he considered a righteous cause, at the command of his leader, Washington. Expecting a speedy return, he marched away as she listened to the drum beats growing fainter and fainter in the distance, and, after half a century had passed, he was still to her the young soldier in his brave, blue coat, who had kissed her for that long farewell. All that is left on Canadian ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway

... to twist it. On this occasion, so great was his surprise that his master should think he would be fool enough to enlist for a "soger," that his mouth assumed the most irregular shape I ever saw, and bore a striking resemblance to a hole such as might be made in the head of a drum by the heel ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... more or less mystery. As the rain began to drum upon the roofs of the two cars, harder and harder and faster and faster, Tom got out the road map and tried to figure out their location. Ridgeton was ahead somewhere—not nearer than six miles, he was sure. And the map showed no gas sign this side ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson

... o'er the brim of childhood's cup again: Away the deeper childhood first must wipe That clouded consciousness which was our pain. When in thy breast the godlike hath grown ripe, And thou, Christ's little one, art ten times more A child than when we played with drum and pipe About our earthly father's happy door, Then—" He ceased not; his holy utterance still Flowing went on, like spring from hidden store Of wasteless waters; but I wept my fill, Nor heeded much the comfort of his ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... with wax, and tied a big stone round his waist. He crept wearily down the ladder, and disappeared into the sea. A few bubbles rose where he sank. Some of the other slaves peered curiously over the side. At the prow of the galley sat a shark-charmer, beating monotonously upon a drum. ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde

... come out all right," responded Betty. "It's the dressing up that will be fun. I wish we could get Ned Ferris to play the drum and ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis

... set into motion by a sounding body impart their motion to each other, the motion being transmitted onward without any perceptible motion of the air itself. When this motion reaches the ear, it sets the drum of the ear into vibration, and these vibrations are in turn transmitted to the auditory nerves, which ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... temple at another time, Wait till the sun is lost to human eyes; For if thou mayest play the part sublime Of Shiva's drum at evening sacrifice, Then hast thou in thy thunders grave ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... was Nanahboozhoo's power over the birds that they kept singing and dancing and at the same time holding their heads close together. Nanahboozhoo's voice was singing in the center of the tent, his drum beating at the same time, while he in person went around in the wigwam or lodge wringing the necks of the waterfowl and throwing them on the side of the lodge. The loon, the great diver bird, was dancing ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young

... assented the director. "Drum-fish are hostile on the Atlantic coast, and on the Pacific a very substantial stockade is required against the invasion of sting-rays. More ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... taking the overture in what they called orchestral time; though it is doubtful whether even their playing could have kept pace with the hurrying of excited fiddles in a presto passage, or the roll of the big drum, simulating distant thunder. Be that as it may, the four performers were pounding along at a breathless pace; and if their pianissimo passages failed in delicacy, there was no mistake ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... and active kind; nor to their knowledge of tactics, and conduct in battle. The true definition of the line-of-battle ship being, a floating regiment of artillery in a barrack, which, at the beat of a drum, may be turned into a field of battle, or, at the command of government, may be sent flying on the wings of the wind round the world. We think that we have thus established our proposition. If not, let any thing else ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... They met him on Wimbledon common. He received them kindly, but could not, of course, give them the help they wanted. The next day many thousands gathered in Spitalfields and Moorfields at beat of drum, marched to St. James's and Westminster, and stopped members on their way to parliament. Bedford was assaulted and wounded, and on the 17th a determined attack was made upon his house on the north side of Bloomsbury Square. It was garrisoned ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... the city has been resounding with beat of drum and the shrill sounds of the fife. The houses are swathed in bunting, and the public buildings were already covered with banners when I arrived on Friday last. This, however is not characteristic Belfast form. The Belfasters ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... on deck in an instant—the private signal was made—would it be answered? Yes; but there was no security in this, as, should the ship's company have mutinied, they would naturally have possessed themselves of it. The drum beat to quarters, the fighting lanterns were up, their light streaming through our ports. Our men earnestly repeated their request to be allowed to sink rather than surrender to the mutineers. No sight of the sort could be finer, as the ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... protested Laura. "I'm a hopeless, disgusting coward. I never knew what a coward I was before. Cora carried the lamp and went ahead like a drum-major. I just trailed along behind her, ready to shriek and ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... evil spirits have occasionally been seen in his company, each holding a lighted torch and dressed in shining scarlet habiliments: they thus surround the chief, and dance round him to the music of an unearthly instrument, like a drum. Loups-garoux, and sorcerers mounted on dragons and other animals, may be seen in the air, wending their way towards Anic, as far as from ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... for this introduction I should not have got admittance into the hotel. People were arriving from every quarter. I stood at an upper window watching the people arrive in town. The first band, preceded by a solemn and solitary horseman, consisted of a big drum beaten by no unwilling hand, and some fifes. They played, "Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching," with great vim. The next detachment had a banner carried by two men, the corners steadied by cords held by two more. It was got up fancy, ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... of the lady's troubles, and her faith in Providence, and her cruel, childless death, and then imagined how my darling would be overcome to hear it, you may well believe that my quick replies to Jeremy Stickles's banter were but as the flourish of a drum to cover the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... honored beyond any Snimmy who had ever sniffed. They stuck their noses into the air and strutted along like drum-majors. ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... set of men, and that what we needed were cool, thoughtful, hard-fighting soldiers—no more hurrahing, no more humbug. He took my remarks in the most perfect good-nature. Before we had reached the first camp, I heard the drum beating the "assembly," saw the men running for their tents, and in a few minutes the regiment was in line, arms presented, and then brought to an ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... of the dead. Now rang out the husky tinkling of the chimes which never flag, as in all Flemish cities, day or night. It supplies the lack of company, and has a comforting effect for the solitary man. From afar off comes occasionally the sound of the drum or the bugle, fit accompaniment for such surroundings. At the foot of the belfry was an antique building in another style, with a small open colonnade, which, though out of harmony, was still not inappropriate. The only thing jarring was a pretentious modern town-hall, ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald

... in the shelter of some trees near the orchestra. The players consisted of three violins, a clarionette and a big drum. The big drum was an enthusiastic performer. He belabored his instrument as heartily as if it had been his worst enemy, but with so much independence of character that he never kept the same time as his fellow-players for ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... lost count of time among those black gullies and swashes, we heard, as it were, a drum beat far off, and following it we broke into a broad, brown river by a hut in a clearing among fields of pumkins. We thanked God to see the sun again. The people of the village gave the good welcome, and Witta scratched his head at them (for gold), and showed them our iron and beads. ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... of the most pleasing incidents of the victory is the recapture, in their works, by Captain Drum, 4th Artillery, under Major Gardner, of the two brass 6-pounders, taken from another company of the same regiment, though without the loss of honor, at the glorious battle of Buena Vista; about which guns the whole regiment had mourned for so many long months! Coming up a little later ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... of erysipelatous inflammation, that makes its appearance on the inside of the flap, and extends itself to the interior of the ear. What we understand by canker, is an acute inflammation of the lining membrane of the ear, destroying the tympanum or drum, and producing total deafness. The secretion is often considerable, and if not removed, will soon fill up the cavity of the ear with a dark reddish deposit, which greatly increases the irritation and ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... roll of the drum; and, suddenly, in the near silence, a hoarse voice barked out a ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... the thickness of a child, are lighted round the place, {323} where the men and women often continue dancing till day-light; and the following is the disposition of their dance. A man places himself on the ground with a pot covered with a deer-skin, in the manner of a drum, to beat time to the dances; round him the women form themselves into a circle, not joining hands, but at some distance from each other; and they are inclosed by the men in another circle, who have in each hand a chichicois, or calabash, with a stick thrust through it to serve for ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... followed by the guilds, the military associations, the rhetoricians, the religious sodalities, all in glittering costume, bearing blazoned banners, and marching triumphantly through the streets with sound of trumpet and beat of drum. The pageant, solemn but noisy, was exactly such a show as was most fitted at that moment to irritate Protestant minds and to lead to mischief. No violent explosion of ill-feeling, however, took place. The procession was followed by a rabble rout of scoffers, but they confined themselves ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... a bright, brief drum roll, A bang and explosion into the blue day. Then a noise, like rockets climbing on Iron rails. Fear and long silence. Then suddenly in the distance smoke and a fall, ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... fires with figures loitering or moving busily about them. As they came nearer, a strange, rhythmic throbbing crept to his ears; nearer still, he resolved it into the slow, regular beatings of a flat-toned drum. The measure, deliberate, incessant, changeless,—the same tones, the same intervals,—worked upon his strained nerves, at first soothingly and then as ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... Tackleton. Hollow as a drum, that laugh though. And he looked as if he could have twisted Dot's ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... the hurricane and throwing a blood-red illumination from the sails of his haunted ship; as the everlasting climber of the Brocken, as the shrouded Arab of the Eastern legend, who announced coming disaster to the wanderers in the desert by beating a death-roll on a drum among ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... of cactus and artemisia, the extended view, flat and unbroken to the horizon, save by the rising smoke in the extreme verge, denoting the vicinity of a Pi Utah village, are represented by the bass drum. A few notes on the piccolo call attention to a solitary antelope picking up mescal beans in the foreground. The sun, having an altitude of 36 degrees 27 minutes, blazes down upon the scene in indescribable majesty. "Gradually the sounds ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... gathering on the sidewalk, and lining up along the curbstone further down the avenue, evidently expecting a parade of some sort. He had dismissed the matter from his mind and was startled about an hour later to hear the tap of a drum on the street, then a martial air by a band, followed by the clatter of horses' hoofs and the shouts of policemen clearing the way. Throwing open a window, he witnessed a sight that dazed him for a moment, and he wondered whether or not ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... when he met a man who loved life for its own sake. This was a comrade of Moreau's, who had also been severely wounded. His name was Gillot, and in civil life he had been an industrial designer. A shell had plastered him from head to foot; he had lost a leg and his ear-drum was broken, but he had re-acted more energetically against his fate than Moreau. He was small and dark, with bright eyes full of gaiety, in spite of all that he had gone through. Though he agreed ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... and Skinny walks along Broadway the newsies yell, "Hully Gee! Here goes the claronet and the bass drum, where's the rest of the band?" I'm tellin Skinny I can't see anything attractive about her, and he says "I know you can't see anything but she's got it ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone

... a council of war was held among the principal generals, and the plan of battle arranged. In an open space, with a dim fire in the midst, and a drum on which to write, you could see grouped around their "little Napoleon," as Beauregard was sometimes fondly called, ten or twelve generals, the flickering light playing over their eager faces, while they listened to his plans and made suggestions ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson



Words linked to "Drum" :   tom-tom, cram, silver perch, music, Equetus lanceolatus, hit the books, redfish, percussive instrument, Sciaenops ocellatus, study, bongo, drumfish, timbrel, tabor, mademoiselle, sciaenid, gran casa, channel bass, sound, Equetus pulcher, bone up, jackknife-fish, drum sander, tabour, drum out, play, vessel, Bairdiella chrysoura, go, snare, cylinder, sciaenid fish, head, percussion instrument, tambour, tambourine



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com