drum: [16] Belying the total lack of similarity between the instruments, drum, trumpet, and trombone seem to be closely related. Drum appears to be a shortening of a slightly earlier English word drumslade ‘drum, drummer’, which was borrowed from Low German trommelslag ‘drumbeat’. This was a compound noun formed from trommel ‘drum’ and slag ‘hit’ (related to English slay).
An alternative view is that English simply acquired the word from Middle Dutch tromme. Both these Germanic forms meant simply ‘drum’, but the picture becomes more complex with Middle High German tromme ‘drum’, for originally this had the sense ‘trumpet’, and what is more it had a variant form trumbe (its ancestor, Old High German trumpa, ultimate source of English trumpet and trombone, only meant ‘trumpet’).
So the picture that emerges is of a word that originally referred in a fairly undifferentiated way to any musical instrument that made a loud noise. => trombone, trumpet
drum (n.)
1540s, probably from Middle Dutch tromme "drum," common Germanic (compare German Trommel, Danish tromme, Swedish trumma), probably of imitative origin. Not common before 1570s. Slightly older, and more common at first, was drumslade, apparently from Dutch or Low German trommelslag. Machinery sense attested from 1740, from similarity of shape.
drum (v.)
1570s, from drum (n.). To drum (up) business, etc., is American English 1839, from the old way of drawing a crowd.
实用例句
1. As he sang he kept time on a small drum.
他边唱边和着节拍敲一个小鼓。
来自柯林斯例句
2. The trade secretary disagreed but promised to "bang the drum for industry".
贸易部长并不同意，但是答应会“为产业界摇旗呐喊”。
来自柯林斯例句
3. The drum is one of the oldest musical instruments.
鼓是最古老的乐器之一。
来自柯林斯例句
4. We've leafleted the university today to try to drum up some support.
