Meaning of Tartan | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Woven woollen fabric with a distinctive pattern of coloured stripes intersecting at right angles originally associated with Scottish Highlanders, now with different clans (though this only dates from the late 18th century) and some Scottish families and institutions having their own patterns; (countable) a particular type of such fabric.
   uncountable
2. A type of one-masted vessel with a lateen sail and a foresail, used in the Mediterranean.
   transitive
3. The commander-in-chief of ancient Assyria.
   historical
4. A pattern used on such fabric.
   countable
5. Clothing made from this fabric.
   uncountable
6. An individual who wears tartan (etymology 1 sense 1.2); specifically, a Scottish Highlander, or a Scottish person (chiefly a Scotsman) in general.
   countable, figuratively
7. A type of fly used in fly fishing, often to catch salmon.
   countable, figuratively
8. A young person who is a member of a Protestant gang in Northern Ireland.
   UK, countable, figuratively
9. Preceded by the: a group of people customarily wearing tartan; Scottish Highlanders or Scottish people collectively; also, the soldiers of a Scottish Highland regiment collectively.
   figuratively, uncountable
10. Originally a trade name in the form Tartan: a synthetic resin used for surfacing ramps, running tracks, etc.
    attributive, uncountable
11. Ellipsis of tartan-purry (“a porridge made from cabbage mixed with oatmeal”).
    Scotland, abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“Her hands trembled […] as she adjusted the scarlet tartan screen or muffler made of plaid, which the Scottish women wore, much in the fashion of the black silk veils still a part of female dress in the Netherlands.”

“The country which lay just above this pass was now the theatre of a war such as the Highlands had not often witnessed. Men wearing the same tartan, and attached to the same lord, were arrayed against each other.”

“Dovvn flovv'd her robe, a tartan ſheen, / Till half a leg vvas ſcrimply ſeen; […]”

“What is called the tartan-fly kills well in the Highlands at the clearing of the water. The tail must be yellow, mixed with a little red; and tipt with silver-thread; the body must be of five or six different colours, yellow, blue, orange, green, red, and black; the colours must join; […]”

“The Shankill was a tough district all right. It was really hard-line Protestant and most of the kids were in tough Prod gangs, like the Tartans.”

“Sir Colin [Campbell] called to Colonel [John Frederick] Ewart, 'Ewart, bring on the tartan!'; his bugler sounded the advance, and the seven companies of the Ninety-Third [(Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot] dashed from behind the bank.”

“Bob Hayes ran a world record 9.1 for 100 y[ards] on a Tartan-surface track in St. Louis in 1963, and Tartan tracks (manufactured by 3M) were installed for the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1967, and for the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968.”

“Running tracks are also known as tartan tracks. One lap of a tartan track is usually 400 metres, so it is easy to keep track of your running performance.”

“But of oatmeal we have tartan—tartan purry it was sometimes called, and probably therefore was a partially French invention—a pudding made chiefly of chopped kale and oatmeal; […]”

“[W]e met Captain VVright, vvho came thither the day before; and had taken a Spaniſh Tartan, vvherein vvere 30 men, all vvell armed: […] VVe that came over Land out of the South Seas being vveary of living among the French, deſired Captain VVright to fit up his Prize the Tartan, and make a Man of VVar of her for us, […]”

“Nearly the whole of his time, however, he informed Captain Servadac, had been spent upon the sea, his real business being that of a merchant trading at all the ports of the Mediterranean. A tartan, a small vessel of two hundred tons burden, conveyed his entire stock of merchandise, and, to say the truth, was a sort of floating emporium, conveying nearly every possible article of commerce, from a lucifer match to the radiant fabrics of Frankfort and Epinal.”

Off on a Comet

“When we were watching Massena, off Genoa, we got a matter of seventy schooners, brigs, and tartans, with wine, food, and powder.”

“And the king of Aſſyria ſent Tartan and Rabſaris, and Rabſhakeh, from Lachiſh to king Hezekiah, with a great hoſte againſt Jeruſalem: […]”

“In the yeere that Tartan came vnto Aſhdod (when Sargon the king of Aſſyria ſent him) and fought against Aſhdod, and tooke it: […]”

CEFR level