sistrum
Americannoun
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 arms appear to terminate in small rectangular bells or plates, and it is supposed that the standard frame was intended to be shaken like a sistrum in order to set the bells jangling.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" by Various
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
Then, from far away, there came the ghostly music of the sistra.
From Cleopatra by Haggard, Henry Rider
And behold! bosomed upon the air, floated a vast veiled Shape that, heralded by the swelling music of the sistra, drew slowly near, till its shadow lay upon us.
From Cleopatra by Haggard, Henry Rider
Some rattled as ten thousand sistra shaken all to tune.
From Cleopatra by Haggard, Henry Rider
The two objects suspended from the belt between the heads recall Hathor's sistra.
From The Evolution of the Dragon by Smith, G. Elliot
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
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 Kuprin, A. I. (Aleksandr Ivanovich)
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 Gilfillan, George
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
"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 Lorimer, Norma
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.
