Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A gong having a metal disk struck with a felt-covered hammer or stick used in a gamelan orchestra.
from The Century Dictionary.
-     See tom-tom .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun   A kind of drum used in the East Indies and other Oriental countries; -- called also tom-tom .
- noun   A gong. See gong , n., 1.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun   a flat gong (without knob) that is struck with afelt -covered hammer 
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a percussion instrument consisting of a metal plate that is struck with a softheaded drumstick
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
Support
 
				Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word tam-tam.
Examples
- 
								While actual meet-ups are underway throughout the country, the electronic tam-tam is also spreading via Twitter. In Italy, Online Activism Fires Up ���No Berlusconi Day��� 2009 
- 
								No, that's a percussionist called Jimmy Blades having a "J Arthur Rank" on a chau gong or tam-tam. Brain Damage Gordie 2008 
- 
								CURNOW: With the disease still ravaging the continent, the song a call to each African to act as a tam-tam drum and to pass on the message to those who have not heard it. 
- 
								Goodsall: guitar Giblin: bass Robinson: synthesizers and tam-tam Lumley: keyboards Collins: drums 
- 
								Jones: bass Robinson: keyboards and tam-tam Clarke: drums Goodsall: guitar 
- 
								The whole machine roared like a gigantic tam-tam to the vibration of the Venturis. Cities In Flight Blish, James 1957 
- 
								Then there is the thump, thump of the tam-tam, the whistling of fifes, and the screeching of a horrible instrument resembling a fiddle, which can only be compared with the Belzebub music of Hawai. Willis the Pilot Paul Adrien 
- 
								In the score of the Second Symphony he calls for six timpani, bass and snare-drums, a high and a low tam-tam, cymbals, a triangle, glockenspiel, three deep-toned bells, in the chief orchestra; besides a bass-drum, triangle and cymbals in the supplementary. Musical Portraits Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers Paul Rosenfeld 1918 
- 
								I presently reached a glade in a thicket, about eight yards across, that had a scent of lime and orange, where the just-sufficient twilight enabled me to see some old bones, three skulls, and the edge of a tam-tam peeping from a tuft of wild corn with corn-flowers, and here and there some golden champac, and all about a profusion of musk-roses. The Purple Cloud 1906 
- 
								[153] The _tam-tam_ and the _pum-piang_ are still used. 
adoarns commented on the word tam-tam
a kind of gong.
December 10, 2006