tympany

English

Etymology

Coined based on Ancient Greek τύμπανον (túmpanon).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɪmpəni/
• Hyphenation: tym‧pa‧ny
• Homophones: timpani, tympani

Noun

tympany (countable and uncountable, plural tympanies)

1. The sound made by beating a drum.
2. (medicine) Tympanites (distention of the abdomen).
3. Inflation; conceit; bombast; turgidness.
   • 1682, John Dryden, Mac Flecknoe:

     Thine's a tympany of sense.

   • 1828, Thomas De Quincey, “Elements of Rhetoric”, in Blackwood's Magazine:

     Dr. Johnson, for his triads and his antithetic balances, he taxes more than once with a plethoric and tautologic tympany of sentence