tympany
(ˈtɪmpənɪ)
Also 6 tympanye, 6–7 tym-, timpanie, timpany.
[ad. med.L. tympanias, a. Gr. τυµπανίας, f. τύµπανον tympanum.]
1. a. = tympanites; also sometimes used vaguely for a morbid swelling or tumour of any kind. Common from 16th to 18th c. (with a, the, or without article).
| (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. Physic (1762) 109 The Tympany or Windy Dropsy. 1844 Babington tr. 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. 1923 G. H. Wooldridge Encycl. Vet. Med., Surg. & Obstetr. II. 1023/2 Tympany is..a common accompaniment of rumenitis. 1970 W. H. Parker Health & Dis. in Farm Animals xiv. 186 The swelling in cases of tympany is primarily on the left. |
† 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 & Hon. 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 S. 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, H' has tympanies of businesse, in his face. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. i. ii. iii. xiv. (1651) 122 Puffed up with this Timpany of 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. 5. attrib. and
Comb., as
tympany gavel (
gable n.1),
tympany 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. |