ˈdrumhead
[f. drum n.1 + head n.]
1. The skin or membrane stretched upon a drum, by the beating of which the tone is produced.
Used also in the camp or field for various purposes as an improvised table, gaming-table, writing-desk, etc.
| 1622 Mabbe tr. Aleman's Guzman d' Alf. I. 170, I did so often visit the Drum-head..getting little, and loosing much. 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 423 The Chance of War, playeth as casually while the Drumme beats, as ever Die did on Drumme Head. 1684 Contempl. State Man i. vi. (1699) 66 A Soldier..passing away his time at Dice upon a Drum head. 1802 Paley Nat. Theol. iii. (1830) 32 It resembles also a drum head in this principal property, that its use depends upon its tension. 1841 James Brigand xli, He shall have no judgment but that over the drum-head. |
2. The membrane across the drum of the ear.
| 1664 Butler Hud. ii. iii. Heroic. Ep. to Sidrophel 24 As if the vehemence had stunn'd And torn your Drum-heads with the Sound. 1874 Roosa Dis. Ear 63 Sometimes the hairs of the canal grow to such a length as to obscure the view of the Meatus and the drum-head. 1888 Amer. Ann. Deaf Apr. 163 Operations for deafness by the excision of the drumhead. |
3. The circular top of a capstan, into which the capstan-bars are fixed. Also, the head or top of a ‘drum’ in machinery.
| 1726 G. Shelvocke Voy. round World 15 We began to heave up our anchor the day before, but wrench'd the drum-head of our capstane. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789) L ij, The drum-head is a broad cylindrical piece of wood, resembling a mill-stone, and fixed immediately above the barrel. c 1860 H. Stuart Seaman's Catech. 54 Name the parts of a capstan. The bed,..spindle, drum-head [etc.]. 1894 Daily News 4 Sept. 3/1 The boring by means of the great circular drumhead—the ‘Shield’—weighing 250 tons, with a sharp cutting edge in front, and at the back of it 28 hydraulic jacks. |
4. A flat-topped variety of cabbage. More fully drumhead cabbage.
| 1797 W. Green in A. Young Agric. Suffolk 94 The sort [of cabbage] drum-head, from its flat top, and as hard as a stone. 1808 Curwen Econ. Feeding Stock 50 The ground was cropped with four acres of drumhead cabbages. |
5. attrib., as drumhead court-martial, a court-martial round an up-turned drum, for summary treatment of offences during military operations; hence drumhead discipline, drumhead law, that which is dispensed at a drumhead court-martial; also fig.
| 1835, etc. [see court-martial 1 b]. 1847 Le Fanu T. O'Brien 168 If your majesty were to give them drumhead law. 1870 Lowell Among my Bks. Ser. i. (1873) 246 He lived to see that there was more reason in the drumhead religious discipline..than he may have thought at first. 1899 Westm. Gaz. 22 Dec. 10/1 What he calls ‘drum-head letters’, written by soldiers at the front before and after battle. 1908 Daily Chron. 25 May 7/7 A drum-head service held in the camp of the Essex Imperial Yeomanry. |
Hence ˈdrumˌheaded, in drumheaded cabbage, = drumhead 4.
| 1799 Trans. Soc. Arts XVII. 137 The drum-headed cabbage is the best sort. |