Definitions

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

  • noun One who plays a drum, as in a band.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who plays the drum; especially, one who beats time on the drum for military exercises and marching.
  • noun One who solicits custom; a traveling salesman; a commercial traveler.
  • noun A local name of a large West Indian cockroach, Blatta gigantea, which, in old frame houses, makes a noise at night, by knocking its head against the wood. The sound very much resembles a smart knocking with the knuckle upon the wainscoting.
  • noun A horse that beats the air by throwing its fore legs out irregularly as it goes.
  • noun Same as drum, 11.
  • noun A local English name for a rabbit: so called on account of its habit of beating or drumming upon the earth with the hind feet.

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

  • noun One whose office is to best the drum, as in military exercises and marching.
  • noun Colloq. U.S. One who solicits custom; a commercial traveler.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A fish that makes a sound when caught.
  • noun The squeteague.
  • noun A California sculpin.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A large West Indian cockroach (Blatta gigantea) which drums on woodwork, as a sexual call.

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

  • noun music One who plays the drums.
  • noun archaic travelling salesman

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

  • noun someone who plays a drum

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

drum (the instrument) + -er

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word drummer.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Well, I thought about not posting these, but they're too funny. At least to me (a beginning drummer). Perhaps others should be forewarned that fifers (and presumably other musicians) tell drummer jokes just to get a rise out of them. So here are my two favorites:

    Q: What'd the drummer get on his I.Q. test?

    A: Drool.

    Q: What's the difference between drummers and Dr. Scholl's foot pads?

    A: Dr. Scholl's foot pads buck up the feet.

    At which point, a drummer hearing these usually says: "Two sticks, two nostrils." And all joke-telling ends.

    January 15, 2008

  • Haha! Nothing better than some fife & drum humor on a miserable Monday afternoon, c_b.

    Or so They tell me. :-)

    January 15, 2008

  • What do drummers do about fish (see dirhinic)?

    January 15, 2008

  • I'd imagine not too many fish tell wiseacre drummer jokes. But I could be wrong.

    January 15, 2008

  • Mollusque, I think it's fair to say I could never, in a million years, have guessed that that would be the next comment on this page.

    I'm still kind of stunned. And I haven't even considered the drummer-joke, or any other, ramifications of having internal nostrils.

    January 15, 2008

  • In the great ocean of life, you're either a grouper or a groupie.

    January 15, 2008

  • Group or be groupen?

    January 15, 2008

  • Hey c_b,

    You misspelled dummer.

    ;) Jen

    January 15, 2008

  • Another drummer joke:

    Major Reno rode up to Colonel Custer on the eve of the Little Bighorn massacre and said, "General, there's evidence of a large number of Indians over that ridge and I don't like the sound of those drums."

    From the other side of the ridge came a loud cry, "He's not our regular drummer!"

    October 25, 2009

  • I don't have any drummer jokes :-(

    October 25, 2009

  • A European explorer is on safari in deepest Africa, and one night, he hears the sound of drumming off in the distance. "What does the drumming mean?", he asks his native guide. The guide says "It means that the natives are restless."

    The next night, they hear the drumming again. It's louder, and closer. Fearfully, the explorer asks again "What does the drumming mean?", and again, the guide replies "It mean that the natives are restless."

    The third night, the drumming is even louder and closer, and the explorer, now shaking in his boots, asks a third time "What does the drumming mean?". Again the guide replies "It means that the natives are restless."

    "But WHY?!", screams the explorer. "Why are the natives so restless?!"

    "Because," the guide says, "they can't stand all this drumming."

    October 26, 2009

  • "A local name of a large West Indian cockroach, Blatta gigantea, which, in old frame houses, makes a noise at night, by knocking its head against the wood. The sound very much resembles a smart knocking with the knuckle upon the wainscoting." -- Century Dictionary

    August 27, 2014

  • Spiffing little definition there.

    August 29, 2014