English

Noun

drumhead court-martial ‎(plural drumhead court-martials)

1. (military) A court-martial held in the field to hear urgent charges of offences committed in action.
   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, Penguin, 1992, p. 394,

     So of course the citizen was only waiting for the wink of the word and he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard and the men of sixtyseven and who fears to speak of ninetyeight and Joe with him about all the fellows that were hanged, drawn and transported for the cause by drumhead courtmartial and a new Ireland and new this, that and the other.

   • 2006, Jorg Baberowski, "Law, the judicial system and the legal profession" in The Cambridge History of Russia, Dominic Lieven (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Vol. 2, p. 366,

     Between the summer of 1906 and the beginning of 1907, Prime Minister Stolypin used the powers which the Emergency Laws gave him to have more than one thousand terrorists sentenced to death by drumhead courts martial (voennye polevye sudy).

   • See also citations under drum-head court.

Alternative forms

• drum-head court

Synonyms

1. drumhead tribunal

Translations