tambour

plural tambours

1. countableuncountableentertainmentA small shallow drum.
   1. countableuncountableentertainmentA drummer.
2. countableuncountableA circular frame for embroidery.

   Recollect Lady Teazle when I saw you first—sitting at your tambour in a pretty figured linen gown—

   1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, II.i

3. countableuncountableA rich kind of gold and silver embroidery.
4. countableuncountableSilk or other material embroidered on a tambour.
5. countableuncountablearchitectureThe capital of a Corinthian column.
6. countableuncountablearchitectureSynonym of drum (“cylindrical stone in the shaft of a column”).

   Synonyms: drum

7. countableuncountablegovernmentA work usually in the form of a redan, to enclose a space before a door or staircase, or at the gorge of a larger work. It is arranged like a stockade.
8. countableuncountablemedicineA shallow metallic cup or drum, with a thin elastic membrane supporting a writing lever. Two or more of these are connected by a rubber tube and used to transmit and register the movements of the pulse or of any pulsating artery.
9. countableuncountablehobbiesIn real tennis, a buttress-like obstruction in the main wall.

   One hazard is the tambour, a buttress which juts out and causes the ball to bounce unpredictably.

   2019, Simon Horobin, Bagels, Bumf, and Buses, page 150

10. countableuncountableA rolling top or front (as of a rolltop desk) of narrow strips of wood glued on canvas.

present singular third person tambours · participle present tambouring · participle past tamboured · past tamboured

1. ambitransitiveTo embroider on a tambour (circular frame).