tympanum

Other forms of tympanum

plural

tympana

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about tympanum

What does tympanum mean?

tympanum means "the main cavity of the ear; between the eardrum and the inner ear". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in tympanum?

tympanum has 3 syllables: tym-pa-num. The stress falls on "tym". In IPA it is /ˈtɪmpənəm/.

What is another word for tympanum?

Close synonyms include middle ear, tympanic cavity, eardrum, tympanic membrane, myringa. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is tympanum a common word?

tympanum 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.