Origin and history of tabor

"parchment-covered hoop with pieces of metal attached used as a drum," 1782; earlier "small drum" (1570s), apparently from French tambourin, which meant "long narrow drum used in Provence," but the modern sense is that of French tambour de basque (see below). It is a diminutive of tambour "drum," a word altered from Old French tabour (see tabor) by influence of Arabic tunbur, the name of a kind of lute or guitar.

The Arabic word itself turns up in English as tamboura (1580s), the name of a long-necked lute of the Balkans and Near East. The sense evolution presents some difficulty, and in 17c. and early 18c. it is sometimes difficult to say what sort of instrument is intended.

Earlier names in English for it were tambour de basque (1680s), also timbre and timbrel. Tambour itself is attested in English from late 15c., and Shakespeare has tabourine.

early 15c., drom, "percussive musical instrument consisting of a hollow wooden or metallic body and a tightly stretched head of membrane," probably from Middle Dutch tromme "drum," a common Germanic word (compare German Trommel, Danish tromme, Swedish trumma) and probably imitative of the sound of one.

Not common before 1570s; the slightly older, and more common at first, word was drumslade, apparently from Dutch or Low German trommelslag "drum-beat," "though it does not appear how this name of the action came to be applied to the instrument" [OED], and the English word might be a shortening of this. Other earlier words for it were tabour (c. 1300, ultimately from Persian; see tabor) and timpan (Old English; see tympanum).

In machinery, the word was applied to various contrivances resembling a drum from 1740. In anatomy, "the tympanum of the ear," 1610s. Meaning "receptacle having the form of a drum" is by 1812. Drum-major (1590s) originally was "chief or first drummer of a military regiment;" later "one who directs the evolutions of a marching corps."