tantara: M-W's Word of the Day

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The Word of the Day for November 12 is:

tantara \tan-TAIR-uh\ noun
: the blare of a trumpet or horn

Example sentence:
"But hardly had we sat down ere we heard the tom-toming of the kettledrum and tantara of trumpets and clash of cymbals...." (Sir Richard Burton, translator, _The Arabian Nights_)

Did you know?
"Tantara" is a shortening of the Latin "taratantara," an onomatopoetic word that in ancient times that evoked the terrible sound of the war-trumpet. When "tantara" entered English in the 16th century, the sound it evoked was a merry one. "Tantara, tantara, the trumpets sound, / Which makes our hearte with joy abound," wrote Humphrey Gifford in 1580. Today, "tantara" is sometimes used as a synonym of "fanfare," a word for a short, lively sound of trumpets that may also be onomatopoetic in origin.

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