tympan

noun

1. A piece of cloth padding placed under the platen of a letterpress to distribute the pressure on the sheet being printed.

   “As the pressman returns the inkballs to the inkstone, the journeyman closes the frisket and tympan.”

2. The stretched membrane of a drum.
3. A percussion instrument consisting of a hollow cylinder with such a membrane at each end.
4. A tympanum.
5. The tympanum of the ear.

   “But soon I grew used to these sounds, and then I understood as well as ever, that is to say fully one half of what won its way past my tympan.”