Also 6 tympanye, 6–7 tym-, timpanie, timpany. [ad. med.L. tympanias, a. Gr. τυμπανίας, f. τύμπανον TYMPANUM]
1. = TYMPANITES; also sometimes used vaguely for a morbid swelling or tumor of any kind. Common from 16th to 18th c. (with a, the, or without article); now rare or arch.
(a) 1528. Paynel, Salerne’s Regim., C iij b. A tympany … is ingendred … by coldenes of the stomake, and lyuer, not sufferyng mans drynke or meate to be conuerted in to good humours, but tourneth them in to ventosities.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, cccxlv. 111 b. A tympany … doth make ones bely to swel lyke a taber.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., III. 1131/1. Some … affirmed that she was deceiued by a timpanie … to thinke hirselfe with child.
1611. Cotgr., Mole, a Timpanie, or Moone-calfe; a shapelesse lump of flesh, or hard swelling, in the wombe.
1635. N. R., Camden’s Hist. Eliz., Introd. Q. Mary … left her life … of a sixe months Fever and a Tympany.
1706–7. Farquhar, Beaux’ Strat., I. i. She cured her of Three Tympanies, but the Fourth carried her off.
1754–64. Smellie, Midwif., II. 82. She was grown very big; a circumstance she imputed to a dropsy or rather a tympany.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Culture, Wks. (Bohn), II. 363. Nature has no mercy,… makes a dropsy or a tympany of him.
(b) 1542. Boorde, Dyetary, xxviii. (1870), 299. Yet the lyuer is drye, whether it be alchytes, Iposarca, Leucoflegmancia, or the tympany.
1612. Woodall, Surg. Mate, Wks. (1653), 68. Cummin seed … is good against the chollick and tympany.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., 178. It helps … the collick, tympany, and nephritick passion.
1747. Wesley, Prim. Physick (1762), 109. The Tympany or Windy Dropsy.
1844. Babington, trans. Hecker’s Epid. Middle Ages, 88. This practice of swathing was resorted to on account of the tympany which followed these spasmodic ravings.
(c) 1731. Gentl. Mag., I. Index, The Diseases and Casualties this year…. Tympany, 3.
1796. E. Darwin, Zoon. (1802), III. 208. Tympany consists in an elastic tumor of the abdomen, which sounds on being struck.
1881. Trans. Obstet. Soc., XXII. 135. The movements of a coil of distended intestine as in some forms of tympany.
1901. W. Osler, Princ. & Pract. Med., i. 26. Obliteration of the liver flatness in the nipple line may be caused by excessive tympany.
† b. transf. or allusively, esp. in reference to pregnancy. Obs.
1580. Lyly, Euphues (Arb.), 238. My pursse now swelling with a timpany, I thought to serch al countries for a remedy.
1590. [Tarlton], News Purgat. (1844), 78. The maid fell sicke, and her disease was thought to be a timpany with two heeles.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, IX. vii. 865. Sometimes the neighbour hils … tumble downe … in the plaine, thereby so amazing the fearefull Riuers, that they runne quite out of their Channels … or else stand still … and … fall into an vncouth tympanie, their bellies swelling into spacious … lakes.
1649. Davenant, Love & Honour, IV. ii. Midwives believe that it foretells A hopefull timpany to come.
1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, V. ii. A mere tympany … raised by a cushion.
1707. Mrs. Centlivre, Platonick Lady, II. i. If she has not twice slipt aside for a natural Tympany.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 127, ¶ 10. To Unhoop the Fair Sex, and cure this fashionable Tympany that is got among them.
2. fig. A swelling, as of pride, arrogance, self-conceit, etc., figured as a disease; a condition of being inflated or puffed up; an excess of something figured as a swelling; something big or pretentious, but empty or vain; inflated style, turgidity, bombast. Now rare or Obs.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 389. Why could your holy mother Church suffer so horrible a Tympany, and Imposthume within her owne bowels.
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., Epit. (1612), 387. To this the Dukes Tympanie, the Commons … became Mid-wiues,… vntill … they had brought him a bed of a Kingdome.
1610. Donne, Pseudo-Martyr, 365. This Timpany, or false conception, by which spirituall power is blowne vp, and swelled with temporall.
1616. B. Jonson, Epigr., xxviii. Wks. 776.
| H’ has tympanies of businesse, in his face, | |
| And, can forget mens names, with a great grace. |
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. ii. III. xiv. (1651), 122. Puffed up with this Timpany or self conceit.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, V. xvii. 258. Some would cut off the flesh of the Churches necessary maintenance, under pretense to cure her of a tympanie of superfluities.
1676. E. Bury, Medit., 214. Wealth many times swells men into a tympany, not easily cured.
1680. Earl Roscom., Horace’s Art Poetry, Poems (1780), 105. Others, that affect A lofty style, swell to a tympany.
a. 1703. Burkitt, On N. T., Luke xiv. 11. He that before their eyes had cured a man of a bodily dropsy, attempts to cure [them] of the tympany of pride.
1723. Dk. Wharton, True Briton, No. 27, I. 233. What … was observ’d of Sejanus holds true of many later Tympanies of Grandeur.
1828. Blackw. Mag., XXIV. 906. Dr. Johnson … he charges … with a plethoric and tautologic tympany of sentence.
1829. Southey, Sir T. More (1831), II. 288. He was afflicted with a tympany of mind produced by metaphysics.
1842. Blackw. Mag., LI. 15. It was the conceit … which turned out to be the sober truth; and our modesty … it was which turned out a windy tympany.
3. = TYMPAN 1, TYMPANUM 1. rare. Obs. or arch.
1535. Goodly Primer, Matins, Ps. cl. 4. Praise him with tympany and tabret.
1557. Sarum Primer, B ij. Let them sing unto him with timpanie and harpe.
1875. Browning, Aristoph. Apol., Herakles, 950. By the tympanies and the thyrsos hoist Of the Bromian revel-rout.
4. Arch. = TYMPAN 5, TYMPANUM 3 b. Sc.
1825. [see TYMPAN 5].
5. attrib. and Comb., as tympany gavel (GABLE sb.1), window (sense 4); tympany-like adj.
1658. Bromhall, Treat. Specters, I. 98. Out of a tympany-like ostentation.
1825. Tympany gavel [see TYMPAN 5].
1849. Glasgow Past & Present (1884), I. 106. An old house with tympany windows.
Hence † Tympanied ppl. a. (obs. nonce-wd.), inflated as with a tympany, puffed up.
1637. Heywood, Dial. Pelop. & Alope, Argt., Wks. 1874, VI. 297. More simple truth in their chaste loves, Than greater Ladies, tympany’de With much more honour, state, and pride.
