Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a sailor, esp. (in the days when appointments were made as much on connections as on ability) a sailor with practical experience of seamanship; also attrib.

1647		J. Cleveland Char. Diurnal-maker in Nares Glossary (1822) 385/182: He is a perfect Sea-man, a kind of Tarpawlin .
1654		New Brawle 9: Not a Lansprisado nor a Tarpawling that furrowed over the rugged botom [sic] of Neptune, but paid Custome to my House.
1658		R. Brathwait Honest Ghost 98: A Tar-paulin is a Sea-Rat or a Sharke.
1674		Hogan-Moganides 6: He was a Seaman, and a stout Tarpolian.
1677		Otway Cheats of Scapin II i: Tarpawlins are a sort of People that understand Money.
1680		E. Hickeringill Reflections on Late Libel etc. 7: Suppose [he] had afterwards got a Shipboard, and even there kickt for fear of Debauching the Tarpaulins.
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 47: In such a storem to cross the Road, / Tarpolling durst not peep abroad.
1695		Congreve Love for Love II i: D’ye think she’ll ever endure a great lubberly tarpaulin?
1706		[T. Betterton] Amorous Widow 66: He stinks of Liquors and Tobacco like a Tarpaulin.
1714		T. Lucas Lives of the Gamesters (1930) 191: A gang of tarpaulins [...] put him aboard a smack.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy II 9: Fly, like the Plague, the rough Tarpawling Boys.
1722		‘Whipping-Tom’ Universal Poison, or the Dismal Effects of Tea Pt II 12: Our Exchange Girls, [...] are Devils at this Sort of Lap, guzzling it down as fast as a drunken Tarpaulin will a Can of Flip.
1725		Bailey (trans.) Erasmus’ Colloquies 183: adol.: If you won’t consent, we’ll throw you, and your Cabinet into the Sea together. ant.: Spoken like a Tarpawlin.
1733		Laugh and Be Fat 150: Here are People and Sports, / Of all Sizes and Sorts / Couch’d Damsel and ’Squire, / And Mob in the Mire, / Tarpaulins, Trugmallions, [...] And Loobies in Scores.
1773		C. Shadwell Fair Quaker of Deal (rev.) I i: Do you hear, tarpaulin!
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1808		(con. 1768) J. Malcolm Anecdotes of Manners and Customs 295: Says I, ‘brother tarpawling (he is a seafaring man), I am afraid I shall have a desperate attack to-night from what I have heard.’.
1812		J. Bell Jr. (ed.) Rhymes of Northern Bards 184: Poor Sawney, as canny a North British hallion [...] married a Scottish tarpaulin.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1832		Newry Teleg. 6 Apr. 4/2: Some young fellows set out in their professional life hy making themselves, they suppose, thorough-bread sailors, merely by aping the broadest external features in tbe character of the foremast-men. [...] ‘kiddy blades,’ or ‘tarpaulin men,’ as they are called in the cockpit slang.
1848		Macaulay Hist. of England I Ch. 3 🌐 To a landsman these tarpaulins, as they were called, seemed a strange and half savage race.
1856		Falkirk Herald 21 Feb. 4/6: ‘Jim Tarpaulin,’ a friend of hers.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1891		Graphic (London) 14 May 14/1: What am I, Nevill, that I should get such a girl as Sylvia? A common coarse tarpaulin. A mere sailor.
1909		Morpeth Herald 23 Oct. 2/4: ‘Tars,’ as applied to sailors, is an abbrevation of ‘tarpaulin’ used to indicate the real seamen who knew their business as against the ‘swell’ officers.
1915		(ref. to early 17C) Marble Rock Jrnl (IA) 21 Apr. 3/5: ‘Tar may be short for ‘tarpaulin.’ Sailors were called ‘tarpaulins’ early in the seventeenth century.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 596: That’s right, the old tarpaulin corroborated.