Now Hist. or arch. Also timbul. [= mod.F. timbale (1646 in Hatz.-Darm.), It. timballo, Sp. timbal, Pg. timbal, timbale, substituted for, and app. altered from, earlier F. attabale (Cotgr., 1611), It. taballo (Florio, 1611), Sp. atabal, Pg. attabale, see ATABAL. It is not clear in which lang. or under what influence the change was made (perh. in It., which had already dropped initial a): cf. the F. alteration of tabour to tambour. The spelling tymbal was app. due to the influence of cymbal.] A kettledrum.
1680. Lond. Gaz., No. 1484/1. The Trumpets and Timbals led the way.
c. 1709. Prior, Charity, 15. A tymbal’s sound were better than my voice.
1713. Lond. Gaz., No. 5106/2. Two hundred of their People [Turks] riding … with Timbals and Chalumeaux.
1788. Gibbon, Decl. & F., l. (1846), V. 15. A chorus of women, striking their tymbals, and displaying the pomp of their nuptials.
1813. Arabian Nts., III. 345. [They] danced and skipped about him to the sound of the tymbals.
So † Tymbalon (arbitrary form of prec.).
1817. Moore, Lalla R., Veiled Proph. With gong and tymbalon’s tremendous chime.
