Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A dark, oily, viscous material, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons, produced by the destructive distillation of organic substances such as wood, coal, or peat.
- noun A solid residue of tobacco smoke containing byproducts of combustion.
- transitive verb To coat with or as if with tar.
- idiom (tar and feather) To punish (a person) by covering with tar and feathers.
- idiom (tar and feather) To criticize severely and devastatingly; excoriate.
- idiom (tarred with the same brush) Considered or described as having the same faults or bad qualities.
- noun A sailor.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A small silver coin formerly current on the Malabar coast, especially at Tellicherri and Calicut. Sixteen tars of Calicut equal one fanam; one tar of Tellicherri is equivalent to four reas, and one hundred tars equal one rupee.
- To incite; provoke; hound.
- noun A thick dark-colored viscid product obtained by the destructive distillation of organic substances and bituminous minerals, as wood, coal, peat, shale, etc.
- noun A sailor: so called from his tarred clothes, hands, etc. Also
Jack Tar . - To smear with tar; figuratively, to cover as with tar.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To smear with tar, or as with tar
- transitive verb See under
Feather , v. t. - noun colloq. A sailor; a seaman.
- noun A thick, black, viscous liquid obtained by the distillation of wood, coal, etc., and having a varied composition according to the temperature and material employed in obtaining it.
- noun See in the Vocabulary.
- noun (Min.) a kind of soft native bitumen.
- noun a strong quality of millboard made from junk and old tarred rope.
- noun The ammoniacal water of gas works.
- noun tar obtained from wood. It is usually obtained by the distillation of the wood of the pine, spruce, or fir, and is used in varnishes, cements, and to render ropes, oakum, etc., impervious to water.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun computing A
program for archiving files, common onUnix . - noun computing A
file produced by such a program. - verb computing To create a tar archive.
- noun uncountable A black, oily, sticky, viscous substance, consisting mainly of
hydrocarbons derived from organic materials such as wood, peat, or coal. - noun
Coal tar . - noun uncountable A solid residual byproduct of
tobacco smoke. - noun slang, dated A
sailor , because of theirtarpaulin clothes. AlsoJack Tar . - noun
black tar , a form ofheroin - verb transitive To
coat with tar.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a man who serves as a sailor
- verb coat with tar
- noun any of various dark heavy viscid substances obtained as a residue
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Acne artificialis is a term applied to an acne or acne-like eruption produced by the ingestion of certain drugs, as the bromides and iodides, and by the external use of tar; this is also called _tar acne_.
Essentials of Diseases of the Skin Including the Syphilodermata Arranged in the Form of Questions and Answers Prepared Especially for Students of Medicine Henry Weightman Stelwagon 1886
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This is not the first time a member of Congress has come under fire for using the term "tar baby."
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Some people consider the term "tar baby" to be a racial epithet.
FOXNews.com 2011
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The term "tar baby" is widely regarded as a racial slur.
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Tweet Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is taking flak this week for his use of the term "tar baby" while addressing a group of Iowa Republicans on July 29 in a reference to Boston's troubled Big Dig highway project.
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I have also always known the term tar baby to be racist, and unlike Poilievre I had the opposite knowledge of the term to only be a racist one.
“Tar Baby” Isn’t Racist. And It Is. « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2009
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Except that Davis Kerry really, really, really should have known, given that almost exactly two years ago to the day, Tony Snow made his grand entrance as White House Press Hack by using the term tar baby not once, but twice, to a resulting shitstorm.
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Except that Davis Kerry really, really, really should have known, given that almost exactly two years ago to the day, Tony Snow made his grand entrance as White House Press Hack by using the term tar baby not once, but twice, to a resulting shitstorm.
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I have never used the term tar baby, have now placed it on my official “do not use” list along with all sorts of other terms, and generally try to be very sensitive to how slurs can figuratively cut and bleed even when used unintentionally.
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So if someone asked me whether the use of the term tar baby, in isolation, signified a racist mentality, I really would have to demur.
oroboros commented on the word tar
Rat in reverse.
November 3, 2007
oroboros commented on the word tar
TAR - (noun) - A rubber wheel.
Usage: "Gee, I hope that brother of mine from Jawjuh don't git a flat tar in my pickup truck."
April 8, 2008