tambourine

/ˌˈtæmbəˌrin/

/tæmbɔˈrin/

Other forms: tambourines

The tambourine is a portable percussion instrument that you shake or strike against your leg or palm. If you want to be in a band with your friends but you don't know how to play an instrument, you could try playing the tambourine.

Tambourines are round and look like shallow drums (sometimes with an actual drumhead) with several pairs of metal disks that jingle against each other when you shake or tap the tambourine. The earliest meaning of tambourine was "small drum," from the diminutive of the French tambour, "drum."

Definitions of tambourine

1. noun

   a shallow drum with a single drumhead and with metallic disks in the sides
   type of:

   drum, membranophone, tympan

   a musical percussion instrument; usually consists of a hollow cylinder with a membrane stretched across each end