Meaning of tympan | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A piece of cloth padding placed under the platen of a letterpress to distribute the pressure on the sheet being printed.
2. The stretched membrane of a drum.
3. A percussion instrument consisting of a hollow cylinder with such a membrane at each end.
4. A tympanum.
5. The tympanum of the ear.

Examples

“As the pressman returns the inkballs to the inkstone, the journeyman closes the frisket and tympan.”

“But soon I grew used to these sounds, and then I understood as well as ever, that is to say fully one half of what won its way past my tympan.”

CEFR level