thrumming

thrumming

1. present participle of thrum

thrumming (plural thrummings)

1. The sound or action of something that thrums.
   • 1948, William Makepeace thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 20:

     Those unfortunate and well-educated women made themselves heard from the neighbouring drawing-room, where they were thrumming away, with hard fingers, an elaborate music-piece on the piano-forte, as their mother spoke; and indeed, they were at music, or at backboard, or at geography, or at history, the whole day long.

   • 1870, The African Repository and Colonial Journal (volume 46, page 231)

     The harp itself was a huge gourd, and a most unmusical "shell" it proved to be. It had three strings, the thrummings of which disquieted me on two accounts […]