E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Drum.
A crowded evening party, a contraction of “drawing-room” (dr’-’oom). Cominges, the French ambassador, writing to Louis XIV., calls these assemblies drerums and driwromes. (See ROUT, HURRICANE.)
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“The Comte de Broglie … goes sometimes to the drerums, and sometimes to the driwrome of the Princess of Wales.”—Nineteenth Century: Comte de Cominges: Sept., 1891, p. 461.
“It is impossible to live in a drum.”—Lady M. W. Montagu.
John Drum’s entertainment. Turning an unwelcome guest out of doors. The allusion is to drumming a soldier out of a regiment.
