tarleather, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

tarleather n.

[SE tarleather, a strip of leather used in a flail. The women thus described are presumably seen as ‘scolds’ and, given that leather means vagina, the word is a distant precursor of pussy-whipped under pussy n.]

a general term of abuse directed at women.

1575

‘Mr S’ Gammer Gurton’s Needle in Whitworth (1997) III iii: Thou s’pay for all, thou old tarleather!