the.com/tambour
a wooden curtain that rolls into nowhere, hiding your desk's mess with carpentry sorcery.
means A tambour is a flexible sliding panel made of thin wooden slats glued to a fabric backing, which rolls open and shut over a desk, cabinet, or drum-shaped frame — or, in older usage, the round embroidery frame itself.
from From French tambour, meaning 'drum,' which came through Old French via Arabic ṭanbūr, the name of a stringed instrument — the word drifted from instrument to drum to anything drum-shaped. Embroiderers stretched their cloth taut over a round hoop that resembled a drumhead, so the frame took the name; later, furniture makers borrowed it for the rolling slatted fronts that curve and tuck away like a drum's rounded skin.
- name origin
- French for drum, named for its taut roundness
- slat secret
- thin strips glued to fabric, then flexed flat
- embroidery twin
- also a hooked frame for chain-stitching thread
- roll-top throne
- crowns the classic American rolltop desk
- kitchen comeback
- hides appliances behind sliding garage-door cabinetry
tambour de basque — frame drum with jingles used in french basque country, particularly in traditional folk music and festivals
tambour de provence — narrow cylindrical drum from southern france, traditionally played with one stick while pipe is played with the other hand