Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An imitation of the sound of a drum. See second extract under drum, 1.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Then they took horse again with the retinue riding to the right and left and fared forward till they came to the river banks; when the troops alighted and pitched their tents and pavilions and standards to the blare of trump and the piping of fife and the dub-a-dub of drum and tom-tom.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • For the dub-a-dub rattling of the drums, with the soft noise of the gravel which murmuring disputed us our way, and the merry cheers and huzzas of the sailors, made an harmony almost as good as that of the heavenly bodies when they roll and are whirled round their spheres, which rattling of the celestial wheels Plato said he heard some nights in his sleep.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • For the dub-a-dub rattling of the drums, with the soft noise of the gravel which murmuring disputed us our way, and the merry cheers and huzzas of the sailors, made an harmony almost as good as that of the heavenly bodies when they roll and are whirled round their spheres, which rattling of the celestial wheels Plato said he heard some nights in his sleep.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • Thornie shall be my sergeant-major, Dickon my riding-master, and Wilfred, with his deep dub-a-dub tones, that speak but three syllables at a time, my kettle-drummer. ''

    Rob Roy 1887

  • But in this state of mummy and melancholy survival of itself, when the hollow skin reverberates to the drummer's wrist, and each dub-a-dub goes direct to a man's heart, and puts madness there, and that disposition of the pulses which we, in our big way of talking, nickname Heroism: - is there not something in the nature of a revenge upon the donkey's persecutors?

    An Inland Voyage 1878

  • But in this state of mummy and melancholy survival of itself, when the hollow skin reverberates to the drummer's wrist, and each dub-a-dub goes direct to a man's heart, and puts madness there, and that disposition of the pulses which we, in our big way of talking nickname Heroism: -- is there not something in the nature of a revenge upon the donkey's persecutors?

    The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 1 (of 25) Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

  • Accordingly they set up the tents and the sitting pavilions while the Farrashes fell to sprinkling water upon the ground afront the abodes and to setting up the ensigns and colours whilst the band of kettledrums went dub-a-dub and the trumpets blared tantaras.

    Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855

  • "Sitting in the swale; and listening to the swindle of the flail, as it sounds dub-a-dub on the corn, from the neighbouring barn."

    The Romany Rye George Henry Borrow 1842

  • "Sitting in the swale; and listening to the swindle of the flail, as it sounds dub-a-dub on the corn, from the neighbouring barn."

    The Romany Rye a sequel to "Lavengro" George Henry Borrow 1842

  • Sitting in the swale; and listening to the swindle of the flail, as it sounds dub-a-dub on the corn, from the neighbouring barn.

    The Pocket George Borrow George Henry Borrow 1842

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