tympany

American  

[tim-puh-nee] / ˈtɪm pə ni /

noun

1. Pathology. tympanites.

2. Archaic. inflated or pretentious style; bombast; turgidity.

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tympany British  

/ ˈtɪmpənɪ /

noun

1. another name for tympanites

2. obsolete excessive pride or arrogance

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Etymology

Origin of tympany

1520–30; < Medieval Latin tympanias < Greek tympaníās tympanites

Example Sentences

Louis Jordan, 66, saxophonist, blues singer and bandleader, whose Tympany Five combo cut several top-selling discs in the 1940s, including Is You Is or Is You Ain 't My Baby?,

From Time Magazine Archive

These Frogs baked and beat to Powder, and taken with Orrice-Root cures a Tympany.

From A New Voyage to Carolina, containing the exact description and natural history of that country; together with the present state thereof; and a journal of a thousand miles, travel'd thro' several nations of Indians; giving a particular account of their customs, manners, etc. by Lawson, John

Tympany is 'a kind of obstructed flatulence, that swells the body like a drum.'

From Deformities of Samuel Johnson, Selected from his Works by Anonymous

Tympany consists in an elastic tumor of the abdomen, which sounds on being struck.

From Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Darwin, Erasmus