Definition of "tom-tom"

tom-tom

noun
plural tom-toms
1. A small joined pair of drums, beaten with the hands.
  Quotations
  It was voodoo, apparently, but voodoo of a more terrible sort than they had ever known; and some of their women and children had disappeared since the malevolent tom-tom had begun its incessant beating far within the black haunted woods where no dweller ventured.
  1928 February, H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”, in Farnsworth Wright, editor, Weird Tales: A Magazine of the Bizarre and Unusual, volume 11, number 2, Indianapolis, Ind.: Popular Fiction Pub. Co., pages 159–178 and 287
2. (usually as a pair) Any cylindrical drum, with no snare; part of a drum kit.
3. Alternative form of tam-tam (“a kind of flat gong”)
verb
third-person singular simple present tom-toms, present participle tom-tomming, simple past and past participle tom-tommed
1. To play the tom-tom (pair of drums).