tom-tom
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.53 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
3
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "[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)."
- "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."
- "It was voodoo, apparently, but voodoo of a more terrible sort than they had ever known; and some of their women and children had disappeared since the malevolent tom-tom had begun its incessant beating far within the black haunted woods where no dweller ventured."
- "Many visitors to France will go back to the States after a three months' fling of night spots and sight-seeing without remarking that can-can girls and champagne play about the same part in French life today as the tom-tom and totem pole in American life."
- "The drums came down to a slow tom-tom beat and shuffle. The audience howled for her body. Harsh obscenities came from different corners of the room."
Etymology
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: टमटम, ਟਮ ਟਮ, ટમટમ, টমটম, ටම් ටම්, தம் தம்