Timpanum

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A drum-like membrane located in the ear that vibrates with sound waves, functioning to transfer these vibrations to the inner ear structures
2. A thin, taut membrane in the ear that vibrates when sound waves reach it
3. A membrane that responds to sound vibrations, sending them onward for hearing

Etymology: The word comes from Latin "tympanum", a drum, and Greek "tympanon", a kettledrum or tambourine. The Greek root is related to "tuptein", to strike, which is also the source of the English "type" in the sense of a striking impression. So the eardrum is named for a drum in the most literal sense: the membrane is stretched tight across a hollow space, just like the head of a drum. English borrowed the word in the 1600s, initially for the drum itself and for the architectural sense of the carved space above a doorway, which was also thought of as drum-shaped. The anatomical use, for the membrane separating the outer ear from the middle ear, came later as anatomists applied the same image to the body.