Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Music The material stretched over one or both ends of a drum.
  • noun Nautical The circular top part of a capstan, used to hold bars for turning.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The membrane stretched upon a drum, by striking which the tone is produced.
  • noun The top part of a capstan, which is pierced with a number of holes to receive the ends of the levers or bars employed to turn it round. See capstan.
  • noun In anatomy, the membrana tympani.
  • noun A variety of cabbage having a large rounded or flattened head.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The parchment or skin stretched over one end of a drum.
  • noun The top of a capstan which is pierced with sockets for levers used in turning it. See Illust. of Capstan.
  • noun (Mil.) a summary court-martial called to try offenses on the battlefield or the line of march, when, sometimes, a drumhead has to do service as a writing table.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative spelling of drum head.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective performed speedily and without formality
  • noun a membrane that is stretched taut over a drum

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

drum +‎ -head

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Examples

  • Preposterous as this contention seemed to Washington, he did not call a drumhead court-martial for the immediate sentence and execution of a spy caught in civilian dress.

    Washington Richard Harwell 1968

  • Preposterous as this contention seemed to Washington, he did not call a drumhead court-martial for the immediate sentence and execution of a spy caught in civilian dress.

    Washington Richard Harwell 1968

  • Preposterous as this contention seemed to Washington, he did not call a drumhead court-martial for the immediate sentence and execution of a spy caught in civilian dress.

    Washington Richard Harwell 1968

  • Preposterous as this contention seemed to Washington, he did not call a drumhead court-martial for the immediate sentence and execution of a spy caught in civilian dress.

    Washington Richard Harwell 1968

  • A pea on a drumhead is a restful object in comparison with Watson on that ice-hill.

    Chatterbox, 1906 Various 1873

  • Andre got a "drumhead" trial before General Washington.

    PA Pundits - International 2009

  • "drumhead" might be a tree, power pole, fencepost, or a house's siding or metalwork not appreciated by sleeping humans.

    StarTribune.com rss feed 2010

  • The pace subsides as Zeitlin becomes more ruminative; Wilson employs a weirdly eerie wooden flute that he somehow uses against the face of his drumhead and Williams bows in a decidedly ominous way.

    Ralph A. Miriello: Denny Zeitlin With Buster Williams and Matt Wilson at the Kitano Ralph A. Miriello 2011

  • The pace subsides as Zeitlin becomes more ruminative; Wilson employs a weirdly eerie wooden flute that he somehow uses against the face of his drumhead and Williams bows in a decidedly ominous way.

    Ralph A. Miriello: Denny Zeitlin With Buster Williams and Matt Wilson at the Kitano Ralph A. Miriello 2011

  • The skin roof, stretched tightly as a drumhead, I had thought, sagged and bellied with every gust; and innumerable interstices in the walls, not so tightly stuffed with moss as Maud had supposed, disclosed themselves.

    Chapter 31 2010

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