Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a derog. phr. used to described someone who supposedly has a degree of black ancestry.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: One of the blue squadron; any one having a cross of the black breed, or, as it is termed, a lick of the tar brush.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1840		T. Haliburton Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) 47: She thinks I don’t know she has a touch of the tar-brush.
1842		E.E. Napier Excursions of the Mediterranean II 183: A fat fellow [...] who had received not a slight dash of the tar-brush, being fully as black as my boot.
1859		J. Lang Wanderings in India 50: The mother must have been very fair, if she were a native, the boy is so very slightly touched with the tar-brush.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 254: A person whose complexion indicates a mixture of Negro blood, is said to have had a lick of the tar-brush.
1865		G.A. Sala My Diary in America II 148: Southerners have declared him to be a mulatto, or at least to have ‘a dash of the tar-brush.’.
1873		Sl. Dict. 319: Tar-brush a person whose complexion indicates a mixture of Negro blood, is said to have had a lick of the tar-brush. Sometimes a man of this description is said to have been dipped in the black-pot, and he is often reminded that ‘another dip would have done it,’ i.e., another dip would have made a negro of him.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 11: One whose complexion indicates a mixture of black blood is said to have had a lick of the ‘tar-brush’.
1883		Pall Mall Gaz. 25 Sept. 2/1: There is a considerable belt of dark faces [...] marring the supposed Teutonic purity [...] with a touch of the neolithic tar-brush.
1890		F.J. Furnivall ‘Robert Browning’s Ancestors’ in Browning Society Papers 3:31 6: [note] That the white and black blood got occasionally mixt, goes without saying; and the word Creole is often incorrectly used for [...] a person having a strain of negro blood, a dash of the tar-brush.
1892		Yellowstone Jrnl (Miles City, MO) 15 Dec. 4/5: Alexandre Dumas the elder [...] had a considerable dash of the tarbrush in his veins.
1899		C.J.C. Hyne Further Adventures of Captain Kettle 189: They get amongst people blacker than themselves, always try to ignore their lick of the tar-brush.
1900		Sporting Times 17 Feb. 1/5: The captain [...] has a strong touch of the ‘tar brush’ in him.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 16 Mar. 3/6: [H]is wife, a superbly developed woman, who appeared to have a touch of the tar-brush in her make-tip.
1925		Derby Dly Teleg. 22 Aug. 6/3: Me and my brother was born [...] of a white father and an octaroon mother. There ain’t much of the tar-brish in me, though Billy showed more of it.
1947		J. Maclaren-Ross Of Love And Hunger 175: Mr. Black [...] Touch of the tarbrush, putting it mildly.
1952		T.A.G. Hungerford Ridge and River (1966) 187: Oh, not a full-blood – nothing so lucky as that. Just a touch of the tar-brush.
1958		A. Burgess Enemy in the Blanket (1972) 254: The brown face and arms of an open-air worker, the marriage to a Malay – the catty club-women had been only too ready to look for a touch of the tarbrush.
1964		F. Sargeson ‘A Man of Good Will’ in Coll. Stories (1965) 133: He was so dark in colouring that people said he had a touch of the tar-brush.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 159: They’s overlookin’ the fact they got some tar-brushing on ’em.
1969		J. Hibberd Dimboola (2000) 83: He’s got a touch of the tar in him.
1971		(con. WWII) B. Aldiss Soldier Erect 86: There’s a touch of the tarbrush about you, Stubbs.
1979		D. Maitland Breaking Out 63: A union like that was tantamount, back home, to marrying an aboriginal or anyone whose skin showed the slightest touch of the old tar-brush.
1981		C. Hope Separate Development 18: ‘A permanent tan,’ van Dam offered. ‘A touch of the tarbrush,’ Yannovitch declared.
1989		G. Tate ‘The GOP Throws a Mammy-Jammy’ Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 106: Jerry Lee Lewis, a white-trash hellion who likes being licked by the tarbrush but is still a redneck through and through.
1993		J. Mowry Six Out Seven (1994) 239: An you, little yella fool! Seem to me like you got a touch of that ole tar brush somewhere inside you.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 9: People who were both Aboriginal and native [...] may have been described in Lingo as having a touch of the tarbrush.
2007		R. Milward Apples (2023) 114: She was another lass I wouldn’t kick out of bed, even though she had a load of the tarbrush in her.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 807: [C]an look after himself as they say... touch of the tarbrush maybe... bit of a gyppo no mistaking.

black people.

1983

I.L. Allen Lang. of Ethnic Conflict 47: Color Allusions, Other than ‘Black’ and ‘Negro’: […] tarbrushed-folk.