Tambour sb.

[a. F. tambour drum: see TABOR.]

  1.  A drum; spec. the great or bass drum.

1484.  Caxton, Fables of Æsop (1889), 95. Of his skynne he dyd doo make tambours, whiche ben euer bete.

1591.  James I., Furies, 160, Poet. Exerc.

1706.  Phillips (ed. 6), Tambour, a Drum, an Instrument of Martial Musick.

1745.  Pococke, Descr. East, II. I. xvi. 156. One of them played on a tambour, and sung a Curdeen song.

1810.  Southey, Kehama, I. xiv. And still with overwhelming din The tambours and the trumpets sound. Ibid. (1812), Lett. (1856), II. 307. A tambour is an outlandish drum, not such as soldiers use.

1879.  Stainer, Music of Bible, 140. As they [cymbals] became reduced in size it was found possible to insert several pairs under the rim of the tambour.

  ǁ b.  Tambour de basque (also 7 tamber de base, tamberbase, 9 tamborbasque) [F. tambour de basque, † de Biscaye], a tambourine.

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, III. xvi. (Roxb.), 85/1. He beareth sable, a Tamber de Base, or Tamber-base, Or…. This is a kind of Instrument, vsed among the auncient Jews, and now by the Turkes.

1780.  Beckford, Italy (1834), I. iv. 34. Tambours de basque at every corner.

1840.  Encycl. Brit. (ed. 7), XXI. 72/2. Tambour de Basque, a well-known kind of small drum, commonly called a tambourine. It is much used among the Biscayans.

  2.  An instrument for recording pulsations, as in respiration: see quots.

1877.  Foster, Phys., I. iv. § 2. Each bag communicates by a separate air-tight tube with an air-tight tambour on which a lever rests; so that any pressure on either bag is communicated to the cavity of its respective tambour, the lever of which is raised in proportion. Ibid., II. ii. § 1. The movements of the column of air in the trachea are transmitted to the tambour, the consequent expansions and contractions of which are transmitted by means of a lever resting on it to the recording drum.

1890.  Billings, Nat. Med. Dict., Tambour, drum; used to collect and transmit movements in graphic registering apparatus.

  3.  (Also tambor.) A fish which makes a drumming noise, or which resembles a drum in form; as a fish of the genus Pogonias, a drum-fish; a globe-fish, swell-fish, or puffer; also the red rock-fish, Sebastodes ruber, of the coast of California.

[1683–4.  Robinson, in Phil. Trans., XXIX. 480. Many Tamburo’s or Drum-Fishes.]

1854.  Bushnan, in Orr’s Circ. Sc., I. Org. Nat., 151. The pogonias, on account of the sounds which it produces, has been named the tambour.

1891.  Cent. Dict., Tambor.

  4.  A circular frame formed of one hoop fitting within another, in which silk, muslin, or other material is stretched for embroidering. Cf. TAMBOURING-machine.

1777.  Sheridan, Sch. Scand., II. i. When I saw you first sitting at your tambour, in a pretty figured linen gown.

1781.  Mme. D’Arblay, Diary, March. Portraits of the three beautiful Lady Waldegraves,… at work with the tambour.

1818.  Todd, Tambou’r.

1841.  Borrow, Zincali, I. viii. § 1. 131. Intertwining with their sharp needles the gold and silk on the tambour.

  b.  A species of embroidery in which patterns are worked with a needle of peculiar form on material stretched in a tambour-frame; now superseded by pattern-weaving; in recent use = tambour-lace: see 7.

1813.  App. to Chron., in Ann. Reg., 252/1. A bounty upon the exportation of stuffs, of silk ornamented with embroidery, tambour, needle work, lace or fringe.

1859.  Green, Oxf. Stud., ii. § 7 (O.H.S.), 94. A French master of tambour and similar accomplishments.

1883.  Standard, 26 June, 3/3. The … Limerick production is of four kinds: Tambour, the simplest and commonest.

1898.  Cent. Mag., Jan., 365/1. My sisters and I covered it [the frock] with embroidered buds and roses, done in tambour.

1908.  Westm. Gaz., 25 April, 10/2. Then there is the imitation of old Tambour.

  c.  A kind of fine gold or silver thread.

1899.  W. G. P. Tounsend, Embroidery, v. 82. Gold and Silver Passing and Tambour.—Fine kind of threads. Ibid., vi. 106. How tambour gold is used over cardboard.

1901.  Day & Buckle, Needlework, xxix. (ed. 2), 245. For stitching through, there is a finer (gold) thread, called ‘tambour.’

  5.  Arch. a. The core of a Corinthian or Composite capital. b. Any one of the courses forming the shaft of a cylindrical column. c. The wall of a circular building surrounded with columns. d. A round exterior building surrounding the base of a dome or cupola; also the circular vertical part of a cupola. e. A lobby or vestibule enclosed with folding doors and ceiling, as within the porch of a church, to prevent the direct passage of air, etc. f. A projecting part of the wall of a tennis court: see quot. 1816.

1706.  Phillips (ed. 6), Tambour.… In Architecture, the Vase or Ornament in the Chapiter of Pillars of the Corinthian Order: Also the Name of part of a Tennis-Court.

1727–41.  Chambers, Cycl., Tambour, in architecture,… applied to the Corinthian and Composite capitals, as bearing some resemblance to a drum…. Tambour is also used for a little box of timber-work, covered with a cieling, within-side the porch of certain churches…. Tambour also denotes a round course of stone, several whereof form the shaft of a column, not so high as a diameter.

1816.  Encycl. Perth., XXII. 220/2. On the right hand side of the [tennis] court from the dedans is the tambour, a part of the wall which projects, and is so contrived in order to make a variety in the stroke.

1823.  P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., Gloss., Tambour,… also the wall of a circular temple, surrounded with columns.

1838.  Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., I. 338/2. An iron clamp was fastened on the shoulder of the capital, and another on the lowest tambour of the column.

1841.  Penny Cycl., XX. 73/1. If the dome [of the Pantheon] had sprung immediately from the upper cornice, so as to present a perfect hemisphere on the outside, the rotunda itself would have looked merely as a tambour to it.

1864.  Athenæum, 27 Feb., 304/2. Above the roofs will rise (in the centre) a bold tambour pierced with windows and inclosing the lower portion of the dome.

  6.  Mil. A small defensive work formed of palisades or earth, usually in the form of a redan, to defend an entrance or passage.

1834.  J. S. Macaulay, Field Fortif., 91. These small redoubts or tambours, though weak in themselves, are of use when nothing better can be done. Ibid., 140. Tambours are constructed with timbers 10 feet long, and about 6 inches square, which are planted touching each other, and sunk 3 feet into the earth.

1853.  Stocqueler, Milit. Encycl.; Tambour,… a work formed … so that, when finished, it may have the appearance of a square redoubt cut in two…. Tambours are also solid pieces of earth which are made in that part of the covert-way that is joined to the parapet.

1895.  Chapters in Adventurous Life, 340. There was a chapel of St. George some little distance inland of this point, around which a tambour of loose stones had been raised.

  7.  attrib. and Comb., as (in sense 1) tambour-peal, (in sense 4) tambour-cotton, -embroidery, -school -sprig, -waistcoat, -work, -worker; also tambour-frame, = sense 4; tambour-lace, a modern lace resembling tambour (4 b), consisting of needlework designs on machine-made net; tambour-needle, the needle used in tambour-work, a small steel hook set in a handle; tambour-stitch, the loop-stitch used in tambour-work; also a stitch used in crochet, by which a pattern of ridges intersecting at right angles is produced; so tambour-stitcher.

1798.  *Tambour-frame [see tambour-needle].

1803.  Mar. Edgeworth, Emilie de Coulanges (1832), 157. She would rather see Emilie guillotined at once, than condemned … to work like a galley-slave at her tambour-frame for her bread.

1884.  Bookseller, 6 Nov., 1190/1. She … added to their slender earnings by her skill at the tambour frame.

1899.  Westm. Gaz., 28 Dec., 3/2. I would recommend the charming and inexpensive *Tambour lace for this design.

1798.  Edgeworth, Pract. Educ. (1811), I. 103. A lady who is learning to work with a *tambour needle puts her head down close to the tambour frame.

1863.  Janet Hamilton, Poems & Ess., 196. The daughter plied the tambour-needles.

1823.  Mrs. Hemans, Siege Valencia, v. The Moor is on his way! With the *tambour-peal and the tecbir-shout.

1799.  J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 382. At Callander the weaving of cotton goods and a *tambour-school have been lately introduced.

1836.  Turton, Angler’s Manual, 7. Fine *tambour silks of all shades, wrapped up on very thin slips of wood, about one and a half inch broad, and the length of a fishing case.

1779.  Sheridan, Critic, I. i. Tropes and flowers suit the general coarseness of your style, as *tambour sprigs would a ground of linsey woolsey.

1883.  Art Jrnl., 150/2. Done by Turkish workers, and Chinese and Indian *tambour-stitchers.

1778.  Mme. D’Arblay, Diary, 23 Aug. A *tambour waistcoat, worked in green silk.

1806–7.  J. Beresford, Mistries Hum. Life (1826), II. Sigh xiii. After having consumed three years on a piece of *tambour-work.

1879.  Temple Bar Mag., Oct., 218. Her needle went to and fro through her tambour work.

1780.  Chron., in Ann. Reg., 201/2. They were *tambour workers.