Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. Archaic Inflated manner or style; bombast.
- n. See tympanites.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. The sound made by beating a drum.
- n. Tympanites (distention of the abdomen).
- n. Inflation; conceit; bombast; turgidness.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. A flatulent distention of the belly; tympanites.
- n. Hence, inflation; conceit; bombast; turgidness.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To swell or puff up; inflate; dilate; distend.
- n. A swelling out or inflation; an inflated or puffed-up mass or condition; hence, turgidity; bombast; conceit.
- n. In pathology, an inflated or distended condition of the abdomen or peritoneum; tympanites.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Examples
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Tapping the knuckles of my left hand lightly with my right is like batting at a balloon, and I can hear the mellow tympany of the gas that is inside.
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They had permission to turn over the late Sir Caspar's drum, though the place is more like an entire tympany section.
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Well, are McCain and Palin are holding this girl now -- who apparently got impregnated at age 16, which is something that doesn't sit well with many of us, including those of who thump Bibles as if they were tympany -- in front of themselves to hold off the inevitable:
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Only wise, only rich, only fortunate, valorous, and fair, puffed up with this tympany of self-conceit; [1918] as that proud Pharisee, they are not (as they suppose) like other men, of a purer and more precious metal: [1919] Soli rei gerendi sunt efficaces, which that wise Periander held of such: [1920] meditantur omne qui prius negotium, &c.
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Some are like woodwinds, some are like strings, some are like brass instruments, some are like tympany, etc. etc.
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S — — was with child when she was last in England, and pretended a tympany, and saw everybody; then disappeared for three weeks, her tympany was gone, and she looked like a ghost, etc. No wonder she married when she was so ill at containing.
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This practice of swathing was resorted to on account of the tympany [48] which followed these spasmodic ravings; but the bystanders frequently relieved patients in a less artificial manner, _by thumping and trampling upon the parts affected_.
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For the rest, the blows were never administered except during the torments of convulsion; and at that time the tympany
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Griselda among herbs, may be given with admirable effect in pottage, as a domestic aperient, "loosening the belly, helping the jaundice, and dispersing the tympany."
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In most cases of indigestion characterized by fermentation and collections of gas in the intestine there is gastric tympany as well.
qms commented on the word tympany
The braggart cavorts like a chimpanzee,
He chatters and flaunts his tympany.
Compare then the sage,
Baton raised on stage,
Though silent conducting a symphony.
February 7, 2014