thrum

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /θɹʌm/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /θɹʌm/
• Rhymes: -ʌm

Etymology 1

Imitative.

Noun

thrum (plural thrums)

1. A thrumming sound; a hum or vibration.
   • 2011, Patricia Schultz, “Hong Kong”, in 1,000 Places to See Before You Die‎^[1], 2nd edition, Workman Publishing, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 489, column 2:

     This doesn’t detract from the fun of bargaining at the variety of Hong Kong’s night markets (those who don’t like to haggle should stay away) that often thrum with shoppers till midnight. The best in town are the Ladies’ Market, for inexpensive women’s clothing, bags, and accessories, and the Temple Street Night Market, for an astonishing selection of everything from clothes and CDs to luggage and shoes—even fortune tellers—at the Yau Ma Tei end of the street.

   • 2020 February 25, Christopher de Bellaigue, “The end of farming?”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     a profusion of insects, which produced a continuous thrum

   • 1955, Elizabeth Bowen, chapter 2, in A World of Love:

     Pungent sweat and heatedly trodden grass, fumes of tea and porter, thrum of hooves from the paddock, the strikings-up and dyings-down of the band all fused into an extreme for Antonia, whose own senses, boatful, stood up to it.

2. (figurative) A spicy taste; a tang.
   • 2014 October 25, Jeff Gordinier, “In search of the perfect taco”, in T: The New York Times Style Magazine (international edition)‎^[3], page 100:

     The trailblazing Oaxacan chef Alejandro Ruiz […] has spiked this black-bean sauce with a hidden depth charge of flavor: patches of foliage from a local avocado tree. The leaves electrify the sauce with an unexpected thrum of black licorice.

Verb

thrum (third-person singular simple present thrums, present participle thrumming, simple past and past participle thrummed)

1. To cause a steady rhythmic vibration, usually by plucking.

   She watched as he thrummed the guitar strings absently.

2. To make a monotonous drumming noise.

   to thrum on a table

   • 1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 8, in On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC, part 3:

     They were hardly seated, and I had hardly waved good-by to Denver, before he was off, the big motor thrumming with immense birdlike power.

Translations

to cause a steady rhythmic vibration, usually by plucking

• Bulgarian: дрънкам (bg) (drǎnkam)
• Czech: brumlat impf
• Finnish: rämpyttää (fi)
• Russian: бренча́ть (ru) (brenčátʹ)

to make a monotonous drumming noise

• Bulgarian: барабаня (bg) (barabanja)
• Finnish: rummuttaa (fi)

Etymology 2

From Middle English thrum, throm (> Anglo-French trome), from Old English *þrum (found in tungeþrum (“ligament of the tongue”)) from Proto-Germanic *þrumą. Cognate with German Trumm and Old Norse thrǫmr (“edge, brim”).

Alternative forms

• thrumb

Noun

thrum (plural thrums)

1. The ends of the warp threads in a loom which remain unwoven attached to the loom when the web is cut.
2. (chiefly in the plural) A fringe made of such threads.
3. Any short piece of leftover thread or yarn; a tuft or tassel.
4. (botany) A threadlike part of a flower; a stamen.
5. (botany) A tuft, bundle, or fringe of any threadlike structures, as hairs on a leaf, fibers of a root.
6. (anatomy) A bundle of minute blood vessels, a plexus.
7. (nautical, chiefly in the plural) Small pieces of rope yarn used for making mats or mops.
8. (nautical) A mat made of canvas and tufts of yarn.
9. (mining) A shove out of place; a small displacement or fault along a seam.

Derived terms

• thrum-eyed

Translations

a fringe of threads

• Maori: kihukihu, hikuhiku, hukahuka

short piece of yarn

• Italian: filaccia (it) f

Adjective

thrum (not comparable)

1. Made of or woven from thrum.
   • 1768, Laurence Sterne, “The Husband: Paris”, in A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy:

     In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for the legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in the husband, he seldom comes there:—in some dark and dismal room behind, he sits commerce-less, in his thrum nightcap, the same rough son of Nature that Nature left him.

Verb

thrum (third-person singular simple present thrums, present participle thrumming, simple past and past participle thrummed)

1. To furnish with thrums; to insert tufts in; to fringe.
   • 1644-1646, Francis Quarles, Boanerges and Barnabas—Wine and Oyle for […] afflicted Soules

     are we born to thrum caps or pick straw?

2. (nautical) To insert short pieces of rope-yarn or spun yarn in.

   to thrum a piece of canvas, or a mat, thus making a rough or tufted surface

Anagrams

• murth