tympan

plural tympans

1. mediaA piece of cloth padding placed under the platen of a letterpress to distribute the pressure on the sheet being printed.

   As the pressman returns the inkballs to the inkstone, the journeyman closes the frisket and tympan.

   2000, Richard L. Saunders, Printing in Deseret

2. entertainmentThe stretched membrane of a drum.
3. entertainmentA percussion instrument consisting of a hollow cylinder with such a membrane at each end.
4. architectureA tympanum.
5. The tympanum of the ear.

   But soon I grew used to these sounds, and then I understood as well as ever, that is to say fully one half of what won its way past my tympan.

   1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC