He picked up the drumstick and struck the war drum.
Tips
history
Famous from the Analects line 乘桴浮于海 — Confucius musing that if his teaching failed he would drift off to sea on a raft. The word also means a roof beam and, separately, a drumstick.
The wood radical 木 on the left ties every sense together — a raft, a roof beam and a drumstick are all wooden objects, so the radical neatly covers the whole word.
