sistrum
Americannoun
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sistrums,
plural
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sistra
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sistrum
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin < Greek seîstron, derivative of seíein to shake ( cf. seismic)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Roman trumpet with the rattle of the sistrum, chased the Liburnian prow with a poled barge, spread her foul mosquito nets over the Tarpeian Rock, and gave judgements among Marius’ weapons and statues.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
They were accompanied by a musical instrument known as a sistrum and a collection of bronze vessels used in rituals for the worship of the goddess Isis.
From Reuters ● May 30, 2022
You can’t hear the rattling of the ancient Egyptian sistrum at the Yale University Art Gallery’s exhibition “Sights and Sounds of Ancient Ritual,” but you can glimpse aspects of its religious power.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 10, 2018
Such words as "blastoderm", "sindoc," "peris," "parasang," "sarcenet," "teazel," "nullah," "cantatrice," "barracan," "sistrum," writhed and hissed in her verses.
From Time Magazine Archive
The goddess Bast is depicted with a cat's head, holding the sistrum, i.e. the symbol of the world's harmony, in her hand.
From Animal Ghosts Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter by Elliott O'Donnell
With rain beating monotonously outside, there arose the sound of bells and, from the sanctuary, the clash of cymbals and the jingle of sistra.
From Time Magazine Archive
There was nothing but the monotonous rattling of the sistra carried by the long-robed pilgrims who walked in procession to the temple.
From The Tour A Story of Ancient Egypt by Louis Couperus
Some rattled as ten thousand sistra shaken all to tune.
From Cleopatra by Henry Rider Haggard
What avail me those brazen sistra of hers so often shaken by your hand?
From Roman Women by Alfred Brittain
Then, from far away, there came the ghostly music of the sistra.
From Cleopatra by Henry Rider Haggard
Three figures of Isis, Osiris, and Horus, joined together, advanced, drawn in a carriage of gold and precious stones, by a hundred senators of Memphis, preceded by a hundred girls, playing upon the sacred sistrums.
From Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One Volume by
Aloud the sistrums ring— Osiris!—to our god Osiris sing!—
From The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan by George Gilfillan
Steps led up to the altar, and upon them were disposed young priests and priestesses with tympani and sistrums, with flutes and tabours.
From Sulamith: A Romance of Antiquity by A. I. (Aleksandr Ivanovich) Kuprin
"She who sends me to rest with a sweet voice, and with her beautiful hands bearing two sistrums."
From There was a King in Egypt by Norma Lorimer
And at every pause was heard the sound of the sistrums, of cymbals, of tabors, of psalteries, of bagpipes, harps, and sackbuts.
From Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One Volume by
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
