tympan

  1. Noun.  a piece of cloth padding placed under the platen of a letterpress to distribute the pressure on the sheet being printed.
  2. Noun.  (musical instruments) the stretched membrane of a drum; a percussion instrument consisting of a hollow cylinder with such a membrane at each end.
  3. Noun.  (architecture) a tympanum.

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This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.