Tartarian
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English[edit]
Etymology 1[edit]
Noun[edit]
Tartarian (plural Tartarians)
- (now rare) A Tartar.
- (now rare) The language of the Tartars; Tatar.
- 1577, John Dee, Perfect Arte of Navigation:
- Two, or Three Honest Men […] should be Skilfull in Far-Forreyn-Languages: As, in the Sclauonian, or Moschouite, the Arabik Vulgar, the Turkish, the Tartarien, the Chiny Language, the Canadien, and the Islandish, &c.
- (dated) Any of various varieties of cherry. The Black Tartarian is a sweet cherry from Russia; the White Tartarian is a French variety of the early 1800s.
Adjective[edit]
Tartarian (comparative more Tartarian, superlative most Tartarian)
- Of or relating to Tartary or the Tartars; Tartaric.
- c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene ii:
- Then hauing paſt Armenian deſerts now,
And pitcht our tents vnder the Georgean hills,
Whoſe tops are couered with Tartarian theeues,
That lie in ambuſh, waiting for a pray:
What ſhould we doe but bid them battel ſtraight,
And rid the world of thoſe deteſted troopes?
Derived terms[edit]
Tartarian aster (Aster tataricus)
Etymology 2[edit]
From Tartar(us) + -ian.
Adjective[edit]
Tartarian (comparative more Tartarian, superlative most Tartarian)
- Pertaining to Tartarus; hellish, infernal.
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 32, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 153:
- (Sulphur Bottom).—Another retiring gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings.