Yesterday I discovered that in French a drumstick is a baguette de tambour, which conjured up images of French drummers playing their drums with long loaves of bread.
The word baguette comes from the Italian word bacchetta (little rod), a diminutive of bacchio (rod), from the Latin baculum (stick, staff). As well as meaning a type of French bread, it can also refer to “a small moulding of semicircular section” and “a gem, ususually a diamond, cut in a long rectangular shape” [Source: OED].
The French word tambour, which is also found in English and means a frame used in embroidery or a drum, comes from the Persian word tabῑr or from the Arabic word ṭubūl, which both mean ‘drum’. The word tambourine comes from the same root, as does timbre [source].
Some more drum-related French vocabulary:
– le tambour = drum
– la batterie = drum kit / drums
– Je joue de la batterie = I play the drums
– tambouriner = to drum
– pianoter / tambouriner sur la table = to drum one’s fingers on the table
– le tambourin = tambourine
– le (joueur de) tambour = drummer
– batteur (-euse) = drummer (in rock/jazz band)
– le roulement de tambour = drum roll
– la caisse claire = side/snare drum
– la grosse caisse = bass drum
– la boîte à rythme = drum machine
– le tambour de frein = brake drum
– le bidon de pétrole = oil drum
Source: Reverso
Staying with the musical theme, ‘baguette’ is also a conductor’s baton so “conducted by Simon Rattle” can be translated as “à la baguette Simon Rattle” or “avec Simon Rattle à la baguette”.
And baguette is the word for ‘wand’ (as in a magic wand, baguette magique); JK Rowling wanted to call the French school of wizardry ‘beautiful wands’ in French, but on finding out that a literal translation of this would put English-language readers in mind of bread, she opted for Beauxbâtons.
…and baguettes also means ‘chopsticks’.
Can I add that Mrs Merkel used to “mener à la baguette” Mr Sarkozy !!!
Did you mean brake drum?
Yes, of course.
Alex:
Interesting that English has borrowed a French word along the way which now has to be translated to a different word in modern French. (Or is “bâton” still also a reasonable French word for the conductor’s stick?)
“Baton” is from the same root, of course. Another musical connection: it’s also related to beadle (and J. K. Rowling’s Beedle the Bard) and its British variation, beatle.