rain stick

1. 1.

   a percussion instrument that is made from a dried cactus branch that is hollowed out and filled with small pebbles and capped at both ends; makes the sound of falling rain when tilted; origin was in Chile where tribesmen used it in ceremonies to bring rain

   Broaderpercussion instrument

Questions about rain stick

What does rain stick mean?

rain stick means "a percussion instrument that is made from a dried cactus branch that is hollowed out and filled with small pebbles and capped at both ends; makes the sound of falling rain when tilted; origin was in Chile where tribesmen used it in ceremonies to bring rain".

Is rain stick a common word?

rain stick is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.