tam|bour

tam|bour «TAM bur», noun, verb, adjective.

–n.

1. a drum, especially a bass drum.

2. a drummer: »

Twice a day, the tambour…would read aloud the latest dispatches in the village square (New Yorker).

3. a pair of hoops, one fitting within the other, for holding cloth stretched for embroidering; pair of embroidery hoops.

4. embroidery done on this.

5. one of the three hazards in court tennis, projecting from the back wall on the hazard side, to make the ball rebound erratically.

6. a palisade protecting a gate, road, or entrance.

7. Especially British. a circular vestibule.

8. Architecture. one of the cylindrical stones in a column; drum.

9. the cylinder on a recording instrument.

–v.t., v.i.

to embroider on a tambour.

–adj.

made of strips or slats of wood with half-rounded upper surfaces for sliding easily across rounded surfaces: »

... a compartment of pigeonholes, which is concealed by a small tambour door (New Yorker).

╂[< Middle French tambour, variant of Old French tabour; see etym. under tabor (Cf. ↑tabor)]