tambourine

plural tambourines

1. A percussion instrument consisting of a small, usually wooden, hoop closed on one side with a drum frame and featuring jingling metal disks on the tread; it is most often held in the hand and shaken rhythmically; by extension, any frame drum.
2. A tambourine dove (Turtur tympanistria).

   Tambourines are shy birds and do not tame easily.

   2006, Gayle Soucek, Doves, page 78

3. A kind of Provençal dance.
4. The music for this dance.

present singular third person tambourines · participle present tambourining · participle past tambourined · past tambourined

1. To play the tambourine.
2. To make a sound like a tambourine.

   Rain tambourined on the stately square.

   1995, Henri Cole, The Look of Things, page 23