tambour

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A drum or drummer.
2. n. A small wooden embroidery frame consisting of two concentric hoops between which fabric is stretched.
3. n. Embroidery made on such a frame.
4. n. A rolling front or top for a desk or table, consisting of narrow strips of wood glued to canvas.
5. n. Architecture See drum.
6. v. To do (embroidery) on a frame consisting of two concentric hoops.
7. v. To embroider at or on such a frame.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An instrument for recording pulsations, consisting of a membrane stretched over a drum-like cylinder, or a ring, to which is attached a recording-needle.
2. n. A drum; specifically, the bass drum; also, something resembling a drum, as an elastic membrane stretched over a cup-shaped vessel, used in various mechanical devices.
3. n. In architecture: A cylindrical stone, such as one of the blocks of which each constitutes a course of the shaft of a column; a drum.
4. n. The interior part, or core, within the leaves, of Corinthian and Composite capitals, which bears some resemblance to a drum. It is also called the vase, and the campana or bell.
5. n. The wall of a circular temple surrounded with columns.
6. n. The circular vertical part of a cupola; also, the basis of a cupola when this is circular.
7. n. A kind of lobby or vestibule of timber-work with folding doors, and covered with a ceiling, as within the porches of churches, etc., to break the current of air or draft from without.
8. n. A circular frame on which silk or other stuff is stretched for the purpose of being embroidered: so called from its resemblance to a drum. Machines have been constructed for tambour-working, and are still used.
9. n. Silk or other stuff embroidered on a tambour.
10. n. In fortification, a defensive work formed of palisades, intended to defend a road, gate, or other entrance.
11. To decorate with needlework, as a piece of silk, muslin, or other stuff which has previously been strained on a tambour-frame to receive embroidery.
12. To do tambour-work; embroider by means of a tambour-frame.

Wiktionary

1. n. obsolete drum
2. n. a circular frame for embroidery
3. n. architecture the capital of a Corinthian column

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Mus.) A kind of small flat drum; a tambourine.
2. n. A small frame, commonly circular, and somewhat resembling a tambourine, used for stretching, and firmly holding, a portion of cloth that is to be embroidered; also, the embroidery done upon such a frame; -- called also, in the latter sense, tambour work.
3. n. (Arch.) Same as Drum, n., 2(d).
4. n. (Fort.) A work usually in the form of redan, to inclose a space before a door or staircase, or at the gorge of a larger work. It is arranged like a stockade.
5. n. (Physiol.) A shallow metallic cup or drum, with a thin elastic membrane supporting a writing lever. Two or more of these are connected by an India rubber tube, and used to transmit and register the movements of the pulse or of any pulsating artery.
6. v. To embroider on a tambour.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a frame made of two hoops; used for embroidering
2. n. a drum