tar n.1
1. (also tar-jacket, tarr) a sailor [the use of tar on board ship].
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Plain-Dealer II i: Dear Tar, thy humble servant. | |
| Love for Love IV i: Honest Tar and I are parted. | |
| Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Tar, tarpaulin a Seaman. | |
| ‘A Trip to Jamaica’ in Writings (1704) 156: I happen’d one Morning to hear two Tar-Jackets in a very high Dispute. | |
| Female Tatler (1992) (10) 22: Some slovenly tars met him at Shadwell, press’d him, and would have carry’d him on board had he not scream’d out and two strong women rescu’d him. | |
| York Spy 25: We shun’d ’em with as much Fear, as a Deserting Tar wou’d a Gang of press-masters. | |
| Penkethman’s Jests 3: A rough hewn Tar. | |
| Hist. of Highwaymen &c 335: Well overtaken, Brother Tar, quoth Tom. | |
| Roderick Random (1979) 140: The tar [...] regaled me with a draught of flip. | |
| Sham Beggar I i: Your poor old Brother Tarr. | |
| Choice Spirits Museum 6: They came back in a devilish Hurry, Which put the rough Tarrs in a Rage and a Fury. | |
 | Account of John Rann 26: A jolly tar, who had just received three years pay, took her under his protection and prevailed on her delicacy to favour him with her company at his lodgings. | |
| Letters and Prose (1981) II 514: The honest tar’s folly was much laughed at, when it was known that he, who had so ofter swung in a hammock, had given twenty pounds for a bed. | |
| Observer 4 Dec. 3: Why do not the Patriotic Duke, the Noble Tar, or the American Wanderer, look to this necessary Newspaper Explanation? | |
| ‘Careless Tar’ in Jovial Songster 18: [title]. | |
| Dr. Bull’s Chaunt to Answer Jacky Billy 5: To brave British tars ever eager to fight! | |
| Real Life in London II 248: It was founded by William and Mary for invalid seamen, and many an old Commodore and gallant hardy Tar is preserved in this establishment, after being doused from his pins. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 14 n.p.: Drinking, swearing, swaggering, gambling, fighting, stealing [...] he was a thorough tar [...] he ‘knew the ropes’. | |
| ‘Sailor Jack & Queen Victoria’ in Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 57: When smiling, seated from afar / Says she — ‘Well, here I am, old tar.’. | |
| New Mthly Mag. pt 3 46: ‘A filthy tar jacket!’ repeated Ward, assuming more than a patrician dignity. ‘Do you mean me, sir?’. | |
| New Swell’s Night Guide to the Bowers of Venus 23: It is amusing to see the tars of Old England with a doxy on each knee. | |
| G’hals of N.Y. 62: Mingled among the great crowd were a score or more of tars, who had recently arrived in port. | |
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 104/2: Outside, and around the entrance to the hospital were numbers of old tars, some on one leg, some on two, and some not on any. | |
| Slaver’s Adventures 66: We received the officer who landed upon our deck, backed by a dozen jolly tars, armed with cutlasses. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Mar. 9/2: So long as the ‘tars’ stood still and conducted themselves like ordinary men, there wasn’t much to grumble at. | |
| How the Other Half Lives 104: Baxter Street [...] nicknamed ‘the Bay’ in honor, perhaps, of the tars who lay to there after a cruise to stock up their togs. | |
| Bird o’ Freedom (Sydney) 14 Mar. 2/3: The tar, when he once gets to anchor, / For lush and a spree he will hanchor. | |
| Gal’s Gossip 108: He is a typical British tar, and [...] spends all his wages on the women he meets in the taverns in Portsmouth. | |
| Boy’s Own Paper 19 Jan. 243: She behaved like an angel, so the tars said, and sailed wondrously close to the wind. | |
| Flood Tide 215: It’s Bayruck — wickedest old tar-jacket on the Bar [...] he’s drunk as a fool. | |
| ‘Gullible’s Travels’ in Gullible’s Travels 115: ‘Jake’s mother can’t stand the water,’ says Mrs. Jake. So I begun to believe that Jake’s wife’s mother-in-law was a total failure as a jolly tar. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Ulysses 315: He starts telling us about corporal punishment and about the crew of tars and officers and rearadmirals. | |
| Bottom Dogs 205: Waiting for a tar or a khakishirt to come out, he felt like a run-down whore. | |
| Anything For a Laugh 168: ‘Battleships?’ boasted the British tar. | |
| in Erotic Muse (1992) 74: Now she sits aside the dock, a baby on her knee, / Awaiting for the sailing ship, a-comin’ home from sea. / Waiting for the jolly tars in Navy uniforms. / And all she wants to do, my boys, is keep the Navy warm. | |
| ‘A Rum Cove, a Stout Cove’ Liberty Tree 32: Those tars behind locked doors / whistling Britannia Rules. | |
| Indep. Rev. 19 Nov. 7: Nelson’s tars still slung hammocks till the 1950s. |
2. (drugs) opium, heroin [colour and consistency of Mexican heroin].
| Und. Speaks. | |
| N.Y. Amsterdam News 10 June 16: [headine] blowing bubbles with a tar pipe. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| ‘Teen-age Hophead Jargon’ AS XXVII:1 30: TAR, n. Opium. [LAPD]. | |
| Underground Dict. (1972). | |
| Finnegan’s Week 281: They’re all shootin that Mexican tar heroin. Now that’s bad stuff. | |
| ‘Criminal’ 🎵 My mother did drugs – tar, liquor, cigarettes, and speed. | |
| ‘Twilight of the Stooges’ Love Without (2007) 154: It takes everything I have to slap a chunk of tar on tin foil and take a puff. | |
| Happy Mutant Baby Pills 16: Because of my own decade and a half imbibing kiestered Mexican tar, I got some kind of heinous [...] parastite . | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 295: My pallet at Kwan’s. The tar. The pipe. |
3. (drugs) an opium smoker.
| (ref. to 1918) Over the Wall 21: I saw and became familiar with [...] morphine users, tars or muds – smokers of opium. |
4. (UK drugs) heroin.
| ‘Student Union’ 🎵 Went to the courtyard for tobacco and tar / Saw these chicks doing this flex. | |
| Cherry 244: [T]his tar that smelled like rotting fish and got you higher than fuck’s sake. |
In compounds
(US/NYC) a city rooftop as a place for sunbathing.
| Earl Wilson’s New York 29: [Here we go with the strictly New Yorkese:] Tar Beach—The roof; pertains to getting a tan in the city in the summertime. |
see sense 1 above.
In phrases
(drugs) heroin processed in Mexico; also attrib.
| Supply of Drugs to U.S. Illicit Market 47: During mid-1983, a new kind of heroin made its appearance in San Francisco. Known as ‘chapapote’ or ‘tar’ this gummy substance is relatively inexpensive and is of high purity. ‘Black Tar’ heroin of Mexican origin has also been encountered . | |
| Close Pursuit (1988) 85: Somebody laughing [...] strung out on speed or blacktar heroin. | |
| Iguana Love 159: ‘So what was in the package? Cocaine?’ ‘Black tar from Mexico [...] Heroin.’. | |
| Royal Family 216: China white, coal tar, speedball. | |
| Alphaville (2011) 143: Eating or smoking the gooey black tar cast a euphoric spell. | |
| Straight Dope [ebook] But when the smell of that black tar hit my nose, all that went flying out the window. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
see separate entry.
see tarheel n.
see separate entry.
(US) coffee.
| Rustlers of Beacon Creek (1935) 52: Gimme some more of that tar bucket that you call coffee! |
see separate entries.
see tarheel n.
see separate entry.
(US) the anus.
| (con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 131: He pull that out of some guy’s tar pit? |
see separate entry.
(US black) a black neighbourhood.
| Po’ Buckra 178: I eben study ’pon Tartown; but dat ebber was a den o’ t’iefs. | |
| ‘A R Kane’ Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 110: In short A R Kane are like Rilke’s The Duino Elegies gone to Tartown. In power-chorded dub. | |
| Can’t Stop Won’t Stop 200: Yet Basquiat also felt alienated from ‘Tartown,’ his own name—part nostalgic, part dismissive—lot the AlricanAmerican, Haitian and Fuerto Rican Brooklyn neighborhoods at his childhood. |
In phrases
very keenly, very quickly.
| Pitcher in Paradise 41: There were just four dozen [...] and Tommie and Archie got into ’em like tar. |