Timpan

Timpan 1. (?Celtic, OIcelandic) [U.], chordophone of ancient Ireland. Opinion is divided as to its identity: Otto Anderssen presented reasons for believing that it might have been a *bowed harp or an instr. with strings stopped laterally by the fingernails; Galpin described it as a wire-strung psaltery and derived the word from tympanum. It may have been a syn. of cruit (see: timpe). If timpan were a Nordic word, unrelated to Gk. tympanon, it would explain how the tympanum came to be identified…