tom-tom

A small joined pair of drums, beaten with the hands.

It was voodoo, apparently, but voodoo of a more terrible sort than they had ever known; and some of their women and children had disappeared since the malevolent tom-tom had begun its incessant beating far within the black haunted woods where no dweller ventured.

Many visitors to France will go back to the States after a three months' fling of night spots and sight-seeing without remarking that can-can girls and champagne play about the same part in French life today as the tom-tom and totem pole in American life.

Any cylindrical drum, with no snare; part of a drum kit.

Alternative form of tam-tam (“a kind of flat gong”).

To play the tom-tom (pair of drums).