steel drum

noun

Music. a bowl-shaped percussion instrument common in the West Indies, made from a steel barrel divided into sections producing different notes when struck.

Origin of steel drum

First recorded in 1950–55

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

On it, you wrote down whatever you hoped for the coming year, then cast it into a big steel drum in the center of the yard.
My Vanished Liberia | Leymah Gbowee | October 7, 2011 | THE DAILY BEAST
At half-past twelve at night a prolonged tattoo on the little steel drum!
Young Blood | E. W. Hornung
Twenty feet before him stood the steel drum round which the endless cable worked.
Dutch Courage and Other Stories | Jack London
In the tube, the weapon sounded like a firecracker going off in a steel drum.
The Sex Life of the Gods | Michael Knerr
There was only a fifty-gallon steel drum used as a spare fuel supply.
The Pirates of Shan | Harold Leland Goodwin

The dogged plodder at the desk endured other heartburnings of which the little steel drum beat the signal.
Young Blood | E. W. Hornung

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