Meaning & use

tympani

noun·Advanced

A set of large, bowl-shaped orchestral drums tuned to specific pitches, also spelled timpani.

See it in a sentence

The tympani thundered dramatically just before the symphony's final, triumphant chord.

She practiced the tympani part for hours to master its precise rhythms.

A note on using this word

Timpani is the more standard spelling; tympani appears as a variant, especially in older or informal texts.

Words with a similar meaning

timpanikettledrums

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

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