Definition of "thrum"

This doesn’t detract from the fun of bargaining at the variety of Hong Kong’s night markets (those who don’t like to haggle should stay away) that often thrum with shoppers till midnight. The best in town are the Ladies’ Market, for inexpensive women’s clothing, bags, and accessories, and the Temple Street Night Market, for an astonishing selection of everything from clothes and CDs to luggage and shoes—even fortune tellers—at the Yau Ma Tei end of the street.

2011, Patricia Schultz, “Hong Kong”, in 1,000 Places to See Before You Die‎, 2nd edition, Workman Publishing, page 489, column 2

a profusion of insects, which produced a continuous thrum

2020 February 25, Christopher de Bellaigue, “The end of farming?”, in The Guardian‎

Pungent sweat and heatedly trodden grass, fumes of tea and porter, thrum of hooves from the paddock, the strikings-up and dyings-down of the band all fused into an extreme for Antonia, whose own senses, boatful, stood up to it.

1955, Elizabeth Bowen, chapter 2, in A World of Love

The trailblazing Oaxacan chef Alejandro Ruiz […] has spiked this black-bean sauce with a hidden depth charge of flavor: patches of foliage from a local avocado tree. The leaves electrify the sauce with an unexpected thrum of black licorice.

2014 October 25, Jeff Gordinier, “In search of the perfect taco”, in T: The New York Times Style Magazine (international edition)‎, page 100

They were hardly seated, and I had hardly waved good-by to Denver, before he was off, the big motor thrumming with immense birdlike power.

1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 8, in On the Road, Viking Press, part 3

In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for the legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in the husband, he seldom comes there:—in some dark and dismal room behind, he sits commerce-less, in his thrum nightcap, the same rough son of Nature that Nature left him.

1768, Laurence Sterne, “The Husband: Paris”, in A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy

are we born to thrum caps or pick straw?

1644-1646, Francis Quarles, Boanerges and Barnabas—Wine and Oyle for […] afflicted Soules