tumtum

See also: tum-tum, and tum tum

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Etymology 1

From Hebrew טומטום.

Noun

tumtum (plural tumtums)

1. (Judaism) One whose gender can not be determined by a physical examination; a person lacking external genitalia; an androgynous person; sometimes a hermaphrodite.
   • 1949 (printing), Maimonides, The Code of Maimonides: The Book of Civil Laws, p. 273:

     Therefore, if a man died leaving a son and a tumtum or a hermaphrodyte, the son inherits everything, since the heirship of the tumtum or of the hermaphrodyte is doubtful.

   • 1996, David Charles Kraemer, Reading the Rabbis: the Talmud as Literature, page 122:

     As it happens, the baraita in question speaks of the tumtum twice, introducing an apparent redundancy into the text. To be specific, Abbaye's solution, proposing an unusual interpretation of the first tumtum ("his testicles are evident from the outside"), allows for a different reading of tumtum in each of his two usages.

   • 2001, Ruth N. Sandberg, Development and Discontinuity in Jewish Law, page 100:

     A tumtum and a hermaphrodite should not dress like a woman, but neither should they cut the hair on their head like a man.

   • 2003, Avraham Steinberg, Fred Rosner, Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics, page 50:

     A. DEFINITION OF THE TERM The term tumtum, meaning ambiguous genitalia, is not found in Scripture.

Etymology 2

Noun

tumtum (plural tumtums)

1. A toombah, a type of small drum used in the traditional music of Antigua and Barbuda.

Etymology 3

Noun

tumtum (plural tumtums)

1. Alternative form of tum-tum (“tummy, stomach; abdomen”)
   • 1906, Tryphosa Bates-Batcheller, Glimpses of Italian Court Life: Happy Days in Italia Adorata, New York: Doubleday, Page, page 82:

     "I much prefer [to drink] hard water, though it ruins the boilers in my house in an incredibly short space of time." Poor dear! I don't suppose she saw the irony of her own contradiction, for her “tumtum” must be stronger than her steam boilers, according to her own story.

   • 1923, Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb, From Place to Place, Library of Alexandria, →ISBN:

     […] takes notice that the wrinkles in her tumtum are filling out so that she's beginning to lose some of that deflated or punctured look so common amongst [the hungry].

   • 2013, Kristen Johnston, Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 113:

     (A normal person with a machete in her tumtum, that is.)

Etymology 4

Noun

tumtum (plural tumtums)

1. Alternative form of tum-tum (“kind of vehicle”)
   • 1911, Robert Ernest Vernède, An Ignorant in India:

     The Civil Surgeon was the first to sustain their attack, as he drove under their trees in his tumtum. Probably a kite had stirred them up just before he passed, but bees are undiscerning creatures when revenge is being sought.

   • 1948, A. C. Jewett, American Engineer in Afghanistan, page 130:

     Halliday offered to take me down with him in his tumtum, so I sent my boy ahead.

   • 2020, Partha Chatterjee, A Princely Impostor?: The Strange and Universal History of the Kumar of Bhawal, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 161:

     ... in a rented house on “Wellish Istrit” but would now drive to Uttarpara in his tumtum. Digen Babu clarified that the house was on Wellesley Street.

Anagrams

• mut. mut.

Chinook Jargon

Etymology

(onomatopoeia)

Noun

tumtum

1. heart, heartbeat
2. (by extension) will, opinion, mind

Derived terms

• tumchuck, tumwata

Verb

tumtum

1. to feel
2. to know
3. to think
4. to intend

Tausug

Verb

tumtum (used in the form magtumtum)

1. to remember

Derived terms

• panumtum
• panumtuman