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Tar   /tɑr/   Listen
Tar

verb
(past & past part. tarred; pres. part. tarring)
1.
Coat with tar.  "Tar the roads"



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"Tar" Quotes from Famous Books



... cottages and the wild hills, mingling with the townsfolk—this crowd, broken up into levels and patches by river and houses and lanes, moved to and fro in the October sunshine, and sent up, with the column of smoke that eddied out from beneath the bubbling tar-cauldron by the gallows, a continual murmur of talking, like the sound of slow-moving ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... Husband; and you know 'twas I that advised you to make the Purchase, and therefore I'll never give my Consent to have the Child brought up by such a stinking Tar-barrel as now sues for him; he'd only bring him up to be a Swabber; no, no, he was born a Merchant and a Gentleman, and he shall ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris

... were mustered. We plunged into the night of the building. Our feet stumbled and climbed helter-skelter, between pitched walls up the steps of a damp staircase, which smelt of stale tobacco and gas-tar, like all barracks. They led us into a dark corridor, pierced by little pale blue windows, where draughts came and went violently, a corridor spotted at each end by naked gas-jets, their flames buffeted ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... day had drawn to a close. A wild, stormy, rainy night then set in, but still the royalist party—citizens and soldiers intermingled—all armed to the teeth, and uttering fierce cries, while the whole scene was fitfully illuminated with the glare of flambeaux and blazing tar-barrels, kept watch in the open square around the city hall. A series of terrible Rembrandt-like nightpieces succeeded—grim, fantastic, and gory. Bertoul, an old man, who for years had so surely felt himself predestined ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... looked round. The restaurant was in an underground basement; it was damp and dark, and reeked with the stifling fumes of vodka, tobacco-smoke, tar, and some acrid odor. Facing Gavrilo at another table sat a drunken man in the dress of a sailor, with a red beard, all over coal-dust and tar. Hiccupping every minute, he was droning a song all made up of broken and incoherent words, strangely ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... What are their speculations as to whether this ridiculous old document called the Constitution goes into a territory or not? Give me old Bishop Berkeley with his inquiries concerning the virtues of tar water. It takes imagination of some moment to sense, as he did, that tar contains the purified spirits of the trees, of vegetation which can heal and help man. These were dreams worth while. Now a German chemist named Kekule, comes along ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... Denmark and Norway. It is divided into six parts, contains seventeen cities, the capital is Stockholm; the air is cold, but wholesome; it abounds with all the necessaries of life; the inhabitants are long-lived; they trade in brass, lead, iron, steel, copper, skins, furs, deals, oak, pitch, and tar: They are civil, and so industrious that a beggar is not to be seen among them; good soldiers, strong and healthy. It was formerly elective, but now hereditary. It is governed by a King and the States, which consist of the nobility, clergy, and ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... pleased with this plan, and the fire-ship was prepared with all haste. All the pitch, tar, and brimstone in the town were put on board of her, together with other combustibles. On the deck were placed logs of wood, which were dressed up in coats and hats to look like men, and by their sides were muskets and cutlasses. Portholes were made, and in ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... a hydrocarbon occurring in the high boiling fraction of the coal tar distillate. It is produced in small quantity in the distillation of amber, on passing the vapour of phenyl-naphthyl-methane through a red-hot tube, on heating indene, or by passing the mixed vapours of coumarone and naphthalene through a red-hot tube. It crystallizes in plates or octahedra (from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... care being taken to give the cut a regular outline, especially on the lower side; for if a portion of the bark, even if adhering to the wood, is left without direct communication with the leaves, it must die and decay. A coating of coal-tar should be ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... done, my good mother," returned Marble, endeavouring to console the poor creature, down whose cheeks the tears now fairly began to run; "the evil you have done, my good mother, can be no great matter. If it was a question about a rough tar like myself, or even of Miles there, who's a sort of sea-saint, something might be made of it, I make no doubt; but your account must be pretty much all ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... profitably exported. The trees are tapped for a juice, which, boiled when fresh, gives what is called palm-sugar; but when kept, becomes intoxicating. The name of the tree in the native language is "Tar"; this intoxicating juice is called "Taree," and by a well-known custom of linguistic transposition it is called by English people "Toddy." We have at Benares palm-trees which furnish this toddy, and I am sorry to say it is by far too largely used. This cocoanut palm abounds on the ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... had nearly fill'd 'em with tea, but being detected, was handled pretty roughly. They not only stripp'd him of his cloaths, but gave him a coat of mud, with a severe bruising into the bargain; and nothing but their utter aversion to make any disturbance prevented his being tar'd and feather'd." ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... specialties in medicinal oysters, such as "huitres ferrugineuses" and "huitres au goudron." The "huitres ferrugineuses" are recommended to anaemic persons, and the "huitres au goudron" are said to replace with advantage all other means of administering tar, while of both it is alleged that analyses made by "distinguished savants" leave no doubt as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various

... down a steep hill, and arrived presently at a low, dingy place, the only peculiar feature of which was that it smelled of tar and had a great many people lounging about in it. It was, as I soon found out, a 'shipping office,'—that is, a place where sailors engage themselves for a voyage. No sooner had we entered than my conductor led me up to a tall desk, and then, addressing himself to a sharp-faced man on the other ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... know nothing about, my dear. I'm sorry, but there's pitch and tar in politics as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... forget that journey on that hot August day. The sun poured in at the window on her, the smuts came in in showers, the compartment felt like an oven, and the hot air was heavy with the mingled odours of blistering paint, coal smoke, and tar. At every station at which they stopped the engine panted like an exhausted thing. The sight of beds of scarlet geraniums glowing in the sun ever after brought back to Audrey the sights, sounds, and sensations of ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... atter 'em mighty well. Holly leaves an' holly root biled together wuz good for indigestion, an' blackgum an' blackhaw roots biled together an' strained out an' mixed wid whiskey wuz good for diffunt mis'ries. Some of de Niggers wore little tar sacks 'roun' dey necks to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... All at once Blue tucked her tail, backed her ears, bowed her neck, and squealed right out, a-rearing on her hind legs, a-pawing, and snickering. This hoss didn't see the cute of them notions; he was for examining, so I goes to jump off and lam the fool; but I was stuck tight as if there was tar on the saddle. I took my gun, that there iron, my rifle, and pops Blue over the head, but she squealed and dodged, all the time pawing; but it wasn't no use, and I says, 'you didn't cost more than two blankets ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... it from the car as I passed Dupont Street," chimed in Kate. "And the Quarter is blazing like a fire in a tar barrel." ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... "like the jolly tar you quote, dismiss both your songs as 'scurvy tunes,' and, swigging at a black ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... a pair of boots, chunks of pinon pine, and a discarded flannel shirt on which lay a gray cat nursing a kitten. Through the inner door, standing open, she had a glimpse of two cots with tumbled blankets. The place was the office and temporary home of a busy man, a rough board-and-tar-paper habitation that went forward on skids as the camp went forward, the workshop and living-quarters of a director who was stripped down to the hard essentials of toil and whose brain was the nerve centre of a desperate effort by a host ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... want. Finally, it is certain, that if America had continued under the dominion of Great Britain, that very concurrence in the markets of Europe, which the British pretend will be a consequence of the independence of America, would have taken place, especially in the articles of pitch, tar, turpentine, iron, ship timber, masts, spars, bowsprits, and in general of all ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... be favored in its growth if the spore can find plenty of food, water, warmth and darkness. As these conditions generally exist in wounds and cavities of trees, it is wise to keep all wounds well covered with coal tar and to so drain the cavities that moisture cannot lodge in them. This subject will be gone into more fully in the following two studies on ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... the crew. The colony was at this time in such want of naval stores of every kind, that the ruin of all the floating craft, so lately in good condition, was nearly effected. The bottoms of the boats were destroyed by the worms, for want of pitch, tar, paint, and oil; and in order to enable the Colonial schooner to proceed to Norfolk Island (for which place she was preparing to sail, in company with the Reliance), it had been necessary to reduce part of the Supply's sails, and convert them to ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... heated up, and those fellows gave the canvas and the hull all about it a good coating of tar. We ran several miles on this tack, and until the job was completed. Then, when the men and the tar-buckets were inboard again, the Scarboro was put over on the other tack and we beat back toward ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... to a Continental gas association about a year ago, the writer stated, as the result of many experiments, that unless the temperature in the ascension pipe rises above 480 deg. Fahr., thickening of the tar in the hydraulic main and choking of the ascension pipe will certainly occur. This led me to make a series of experiments, extending over many months, on the temperature of the gas in the ascension pipes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various

... considered dear, if you think merely of the price. But that is not the way to look at it. "What is it going to do for me?" That is what the girl has got to ask herself. It does not do to spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar, as the saying is. If you are going to be a dashing, wilful beauty, you must have the hair for it, or the whole ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... culled from the most experienced seamen on board. These are the fellows that sing you "The Bay of Biscay Oh!" and "Here a sheer hulk lies poor Torn Bowling!" "Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer!" who, when ashore, at an eating-house, call for a bowl of tar and a biscuit. These are the fellows who spin interminable yarns about Decatur, Hull, and Bainbridge; and carry about their persons bits of "Old Ironsides," as Catholics do the wood of the true cross. These are the fellows that some officers never ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... seas with Jonadab Kilroot, master of the stolid barque, "Merchant of London," I say nothing, or as good as nothing. Master Kilroot was a noisy, bulky man, with a whiff of the tar-barrel ever about him and a heart as stout as a ship's biscuit. He feared God always, and drubbed his men whenever it was necessary; in his estimation the office of sea-captain was the most important under heaven, and ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... care what people call you?" asked Ruth. "If you had been born in Indiana they'd have called you a 'Hoosier'; and if in North Carolina, they'd call you a 'Tar Heel.'" ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill

... in the place, while sounds of things sizzling made music for the hungry. The miner laid bare a section of the table, which he set with cups, plates, and iron tools for eating. He then dished up two huge supplies of steaming beans and bacon, two monster cups of coffee, black as tar, and cut a giant pile of ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels

... preparing it. Some travellers claim that it consists only of a decoction of poisonous plants; others believe that with such substances are mixed the fangs of snakes, and certain species of poisonous ants, the whole compound being boiled down to the consistency of tar. ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... being Thames Street, the consequence was terrible, for the shops and warehouses of this thoroughfare containing inflammable materials, required for the shipping trade, such as oil, pitch, tar, and rosin, the houses at one side the street were immediately wrapped, from basement to garret, in sheets of angry flame. And now flaunting its yellow light skywards, as if exulting in its strength, and triumphing ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... nautical use,—impossible here to do more than hint at such a possibility. A specimen or two will show the situation of the present tongue, and the blending process already gone through with. We need not dip for this so far into the tar-bucket as to bother (nautice, "galley") the landsman. We will take terms familiar to all. The three masts of a ship are known as "fore," "main," and "mizzen." Of these, the first is English, the second Norman-French, the third Italian ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... her little brother and had him burnt; this eased the pain at her heart a little. Then her aunt was conveyed to her from Majorca, and on arrival was pierced by several bodkins and ultimately buried in hot tar. Isabella Angelica almost gave vent to a ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... my granny!" bawled Big Medicine, laughing his big haw-haw. "Pore ole Applehead's sure steppin' high these days. He'd mortgage his ranch and feel like a millionaire, by cripes! His ole Come-Paddy cat jest natcherally walloped the tar outa Shunky Cheestely, and Applehead seen him doin' it. Come-Paddy, he's hangin' out in the house now, by cripes, 'cept when he takes a sashay down to the stable lookin' fer more. And Shunky, he's ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... and being ennobled by the grant of a turban, an honour which gives admission to the royal table, and also that of assisting at and delivering one's opinion in the councils of the Persians, went onwards, not with a punt pole or a tar rope, as the proverb is (that is to say, not by any tedious or circuitous path), but with flowing sails into the conduct of state affairs, and stirring up Sapor, as formerly Maharbal roused the sluggish Hannibal, was ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... leather. The modern leather industry cannot, to-day, be without these important products, but also in those tanneries, where the synthetic tannins have not so far been regarded as indispensable, their use is strongly recommended. Just as in the case of the coal-tar dyes, the synthetic tannins will make us independent of foreign supplies, and thus keep within our own borders the vast sum of money required in former days for the purchase of foreign tanning materials. May this book prove the means of providing an incentive for a still wider application ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser

... sitting around him and drinking tea out of fine china cups, and eating from lovely gold-rimmed plates. The tea kettle felt flattered and said to himself: 'Oh, now I can be anybody's equal.' But one of the ladies said: 'I can smell tar soap and I think it comes from this tea kettle. I wonder what that means?' Her neighbor laughed and said: 'I noticed it long ago. I hope it has not been used for washing stockings.' So they looked at the kettle and sniffed and turned up their noses ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri

... You're killing your mother with your foolish swears. Pull up short,' sez Ay, 'and tray and faind some other word that'll do.' So Ay fixed upon 'tarnished,' and Ay'm dashed if may mother wasn't perfectly satisfayed. It's a grand word! Puts you in mind of tar and 'tarnal and tarpauling, and lots of shippy things. 'Twas hard to get used to it at first; but 'pon may word now, may dear, it comes as nat'ral as swearing. But there! go on with the story. Where ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... Alex Smith, an eighty-three year old negro couple were slaves in Kentucky near Paris, Tennessee, as children. They now reside at 127 North Lake Street, on the western limits of South Bend. This couple lives in a little shack patched up with tar ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... living (did I tell you this before?) at a little cottage close by the lawn gates, where I have my books, a barrel of beer which I tap myself (can you tap a barrel of beer?), and an old woman to do for me. I have also just concocted two gallons of Tar water under the directions of Bishop Berkeley: it is to be bottled off this very day after a careful skimming: and then drunk by those who can and will. It is to be tried first on my old woman: if she survives, I am to begin: and it will then gradually spread into the Parish, through England, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... whom they were given. It is the characteristic of our nation, that we scorn to take any unfair advantage, or reap any benefit, by keeping our intentions a secret. We imitate the conduct of that English tar, who, having entered a fort, and meeting a Spanish officer without his sword, being providentially supplied with two cut-lasses himself, immediately offered him one, that they might ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... deemed unfit for the sea. It is not our business to inquire why River Andrew had never used the fickle element. All that lay in the past. And in a degree he was saved from the disgrace of being a landsman by the smell of tar and bloaters that heralded his coming, by the blue jersey and the brown homespun trousers which he wore all the week, and by the saving word which distinguished him from the poor inland lubbers who had no dealings with ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... happens, indeed, that different portions of confederated America possess each some peculiar advantage for this essential establishment. The more southern States furnish in greater abundance certain kinds of naval stores—tar, pitch, and turpentine. Their wood for the construction of ships is also of a more solid and lasting texture. The difference in the duration of the ships of which the navy might be composed, if chiefly constructed of ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... train rolled o'er a trestle high, The river ran below him. "Well, I'll be blamed!" our tar exclaimed, And grabbed ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... shacks. They had roofs of one slant. They were built of rough lumber, and roofed with tarred paper, which made all food taste of tar. ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland

... into the road from which he had taken it. Some of it had percolated through the open windows, some had whitened the roses and gooseberries of the wayside gardens, while a certain proportion had entered the lungs of the villagers. "I wonder when they'll learn wisdom and tar the roads," was his comment. Then a man ran out of the draper's with a roll of oilcloth, and off they ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... heard the boatswain calling to "stow your cleaning-tackle, my lads, and for'ards to the break of the fo'c'sle. Them that has white ties and kid gloves can wear 'em; and them that's hout of sech articles must come as they can. Pick up that tar-pot, ye fool! Now are ye all coming and bringing your voices along with ye? Hany gentleman as 'as 'ad the misfortin' to leave his music behind will oblige the ship's ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... mind that day undoubtedly influenced all my subsequent actions. Late in the evening, when the rush of visitors was largely over, I noticed a miserable bunch of boards, serving as a boat, with only a dab of tar along its seams, lying motionless a little way from us. In it, sitting silent, was a half-clad, brown-haired, brown-faced figure. After long hesitation, during which time I had been watching him from the ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... think of the immense quantities of coal we burn, and only extract a small percentage of its heat as yet. One of these days there will likely dawn on some mind the correct way of using it, and then what a revelation. Think of the tar evolved in the process of making gas, that lately went to loss, and that is now used in dyeing. Think of the telephone wire, and more lately the telephone without wire. Think of the heat, light and power evolved from electricity. Think of the ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... presence known by the plant assuming an unhealthy appearance, the leaves curling up, etc. Frequently swarms of ants (which feed upon the aphides) are found beneath the plants attacked. Syringe the plant all over repeatedly with gas-tar water, or with tobacco or lime-water. The lady-bird ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink

... appeal: desires, appetites, passions; or—to use the word which refined people are so afraid of, although the Bible is not, 'lusts—which war against the soul,' and which need only a touch of fire to flare up like a tar-barrel, in thick foul smoke darkening the heavens. There are fiery darts that strike these animal natures of ours, and set ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... thoughts of self. The same turbid blending of anger and self-regard impelled his arm to the passionately repeated strokes, which, in his heat, he substituted for the quiet words that he was bidden to speak. The Palestinian Tar gum says very significantly, that at the first stroke the rock dropped blood, thereby indicating the tragic sinfulness of the angry blow. How unworthy a representative of the long-suffering God was this angry man! 'The servant of the Lord ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... rowin' on a river. An' don't you be givin' the raft the go-by," he added, addressing himself to Hugh; "there's a lot goes to a raft an' you never know when your knowledge o' handlin' one may come in useful. That's a tidy one you've made, but it wants a bit o' tar. I'll bring some along one o' these days an' show you how to use it—there's ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... led a smaller one. A cedar fire burned in the middle of the lesser enclosure. John Spencer and two helpers stood near the fire, saws at hand, searing-iron heating, tar-pot simmering. The herd bellowed in the outer corral. The riders, ropes in hand, sat with laughing faces turned toward Judith, who was to rope the first steer. Douglas wished that there were not so many of the riders with admiration in their eyes. Judith ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... Jove-like serenity that perpetual antagonism deep-seated in the bosom of a director towards his shareholders, he faced them calmly. Soames faced them too. He knew most of them by sight. There was old Scrubsole, a tar man, who always came, as Hemmings would say, 'to make himself nasty,' a cantankerous-looking old fellow with a red face, a jowl, and an enormous low-crowned hat reposing on his knee. And the Rev. Mr. Boms, who always proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman, in which he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... in place, and carefully and conscientiously tarred before the inspector happened along, if he did. But they didn't. They got it squared, and ready to be lifted into its place; the kindly darkness of tar was ready to cover a fraud that took four strong men with crowbars and levers to shift; and now (such is the regular cussedness of things) as the fraudulent piece of timber lay its last hour on the ground, looking and smelling, to their guilty imaginations like anything but ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson

... parties went southward in search of the lost colony, but found it not; Newport went westward beyond the falls of the James in search of the passage; and the Powhatan was duly crowned and dressed in a crimson robe. [3] No gold mine could be found, so Newport sailed for England with a cargo of pitch, tar, and clapboards. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... born in Dumbartonshire in 1721. He became a surgeon, and for six or seven years was employed in the Navy in that capacity. This may account for the strong flavour of brine and tar in the best of his works—his sea sketches have a considerable amount of character in them—sometimes rather too much. His liberal use of nautical language is exhibited when Lieutenant Hatchway is ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... you call that young, and in his second childhood. An Atheist, too. Tom Payn, Colonel Ingersoll, Viscount Amberly—those are his gods, the pagan! I'd burn him on a tar-barrel if I had my way. It's a pity we don't stick to some ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... enemies' lines of cavalry to convey fire in order to terrorise the horses and throw them into confusion. This practice has been quite common in the past. Each dog is dressed in a cuirass of leather and on his back is carefully strapped a pot of boiling, blazing tar. Nothing so terrorises horses as the ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... read what passes under his black, shiny skull, so like a drop of tar to look at? To judge by actions, there is here a modicum of discernment which is able, after experimenting, to recognize excessive roughnesses, over-slippery surfaces, dusty places that offer no resistance and, ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... of an admiral of the blue. Uniforms of Spanish, American, French and English navy officers were thickly scattered amidst the crowd, and here and there, making for itself a clear channel wherever it went, rolled the stalwart form of the Yankee tar. ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... my hands until the blood came out in many places; and I have made thee lick it; and I have then done the same to thine. Afterward, from thy tenth year, I have mixed gunpowder in thy grog; I have peppered thy peaches; I have poured bilge-water (with a little good wholesome tar in it) upon thy melons; I have brought out girls to mock thee and cocker thee, and talk like mariners, to make thee braver. Nothing would do. Nay, recollect thee! I have myself led thee forth to the window when fellows were hanged and shot; and I have shown thee every day the halves and quarters ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... corners of the British Dominions, turns out to have been one of the mournfulest that ever took place in this land of ours. It called and thought itself a Settlement of brightest hope and fulfilment, bright as the blaze of universal tar-barrels and bonfires could make it: and we find it now, on looking back on it with the insight which trial has yielded, a Settlement as of despair. Considered well, it was a Settlement to govern henceforth without God, with only some decent ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... yore haid!" Applehead retorted at the full capacity of his lungs and with an absolute disregard for Luck's position as director of the company. "Who's leadin' this here burro—you er me? Fer two cents I'd come back and knock the tar outa you, Luck! Stand up there on a rock and flop your wings and crow like a danged banty rooster—'n' I was leadin' burros 'fore you was born! I'd like to know who yuh ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... took a stubby paint brush from his belt, and he dipped it into the big can, and he wiped it over as many of the spots as he could reach. The spots looked as if they had been painted with tar. ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins

... wrathful as it is possible to be with that lovable youth; he has originated a great mystery, and achieved a seemingly impossible feat, and instead of explaining it, he swaggers around like a Hindoo mystic enshrouded in mystery and the fellows are wild enough to tar and ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... large, and the streams of urine plainly indicated. One afternoon I induced the boy to go to the bath-room, lie on his back, and allow me to perform fellatio on him. I did not ask him to return the favor. I remember the curious tar-like smell of his clothing and the region about his genitals. It is possible that I gained my knowledge of fellatio from an unknown boy of 10, who had induced me, during the preceding summer to enter a sandy lot with him, watch him urinate, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... back from the river, leaving in its place a broken tundra of rock and shale and a wide strip of black sand along the edge of the stream itself. Carrigan knew what it was—an upheaval of the tar-sand country so common still farther north, the beginning of that treasure of the earth which would some day make the top of the American continent one of the Eldorados of the world. The fires drew nearer, and suddenly ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... shipowner of Havre, he had settled down in his native town, where he had caused the brig "Jeune-Hardie" to be constructed at his own expense. Several successful voyages had been made in the North, and the ship always found a good sale for its cargoes of wood, iron, and tar. Jean Cornbutte then gave up the command of her to his son Louis, a fine sailor of thirty, who, according to all the coasting captains, was ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... the Shenandoah; forward right from the main hatchway it was laden with timber. Running rigging lay loose on the deck in coils, and nearly the whole of the quarter-deck was occupied by a deck-house. The place had a delightful smell of sea-beach, decaying wood, tar, and mystery. Bights of buntline and other ropes were dangling from above, only waiting to be swung from. A bell was hung just forward of the foremast. In half a moment Dick was forward hammering at the bell with a belaying pin he had picked from ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... New and Thoroughly Revised Edition. Completely brought up to the present state of the Science, including the Chemistry of Coal Tar Colors, by A.A. FESQUET, Chemist and Engineer. With an Appendix on Dyeing and Calico Printing, as shown at the Universal Exposition, Paris, 1867. Illustrated. 8vo. ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... as he did when he was unconvinced but he was in no mood for argument. He climbed to the top pole of the corral fence and looked proudly at the row of ten-by-twelve tents which the guests were to occupy, at the long tar-paper room built on to the original cabin for a dining room, at the new bunk-house for himself and Wallie and the help, at the shed with a dozen new saddles hanging on their nails, while the ponies to wear them milled behind him in the corral. His ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... on the outside, visibly infected by it, deeply enough; the curious result, in its combination of elements, being to most people wholly incomprehensible. It was as if a cable had been woven of blood-crimson silk, and then tarred on the outside. People handled it, and the tar came off on their hands; red gleams were seen through the black, underneath, at the places where it had been strained. Was it ochre?—said ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... flute-players, to the measured beat of the oars, which came up from the triremes in the private harbor of the Emperor as they went out to sea. Even the pure blue of the sky and the warmth of the delicious morning were a pleasure to him, and he asked himself whether the smell of tar, which pervaded the seaport, were ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... tender and misty, that bent close and smiled. He woke up and stared at the city. He got up and walked about. He was faint now and felt chilled, although the asphalt was still soft underfoot and smelled of hot tar. As he moved listlessly along the pavement, a girl brushed against him, looked up, and murmured to him. She was small and slight. His heart seemed to leap away from the contact and then to leap almost irresistibly to meet it. He turned away and went back quickly ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... a manner I cannot repeat; no epithet ever stood by itself. When I was young the boys relished these dreadful words because they seemed to smell of tar and battle-smoke, when every English boy was for being a sailor and daring the Black Gentleman below. In all truth, the bad words came from him; though an excellent scholar has assured me they should be taken for aspirates, and mean no harm; and so it may be, but heartily do I rejoice that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... bedad! if that was a temperate letter, I should like to know what an intemperate one is. Well, we read it through, and Moriarty said to me, 'Can we let this stay as it is?' And I said, 'No. We can't.' 'Well,' said Moriarty to me, 'what are we to do about it? I should like to tar and feather the man,' he said. 'We can't do that,' I said, 'but why not tar and feather his statue?' I said. So we thought we would. Ye know where the statue is, I suppose? It's in the recreation ground just ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse

... My hands were brown and smeared and bruised. My uniform, once white, was streaked and stained with tar. I wore shoes innocent of blacking and made after a pattern much admired among navvies. I had an individual ache in every bone of my body, and I was hungry and was compelled to look forward to a dinner of odorous salt-horse, hard bread, and "ennuied" coffee, ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... Hegel, Spinoza, Bishop Berkeley, were once clothed with a "brief authority;" but Berkeley ended his metaphysical theory with a treatise on the healing properties of tar-water, and Hegel was an inveterate snuff-taker. The circumlocution and cold categories of Kant fail to improve the conditions of mortals, morally, spiritually, or physically. Such miscalled metaphysical systems are reeds shaken by the wind. Compared with the inspired wisdom and infinite ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy

... ships, man," said the old sailor, with contempt. "I meant Americans, of course; it makes all the difference in the world. But as for land—I hate it. It's only good to grow vegetables, and soft tack, and fresh water, and tar, and timber, and breed children to make sailormen out of—why, it's a sort of a cook's galley, a kitchen they call it there, for the sea at best! Give me the sight of blue water, and let me have the solid feel of the deck beneath my feet; no ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... year 1856, natural dyestuffs alone, with but one or two exceptions, were employed by dyers; but in that year a present distinguished member of this Society, Dr. Perkin, astonished the scientific and industrial world by his epoch-making discovery of the coal tar color mauve. From that time down to the present, the textile colorist has had placed before him an ever increasing number of coloring matters derived ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... he took a trolley car, And to the city hied him, Alongside of another tar Who offered for to ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... the door opened and Wool ushered in a stout, jolly-looking tar, dressed in a white pea-jacket, duck trousers and tarpaulin hat, and carrying in his hand a large pack. He took off his hat and scraped his foot behind him, and remained standing before the housekeeper with his head tied up in a red bandana handkerchief and his chin ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... flew by a monstrous crow As big as a tar-barrel, Which frightened both the heroes so ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown

... public discipline stood on the northern side of the square, before the iron-studded door of the Jail. The same hand, may be, that had blackened over the Jail's weather-boarded front with a coat of tar, had with equal propriety whitewashed the facade of the Court-house; an immaculate building, set in the cool shade, its straight-lined front broken only by a recessed balcony, whence, as occasion arose, Mr. George Bellingham, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... ludicrous in his own plight and position, there was nothing of that character in the scene around him, or in his own contemplations. The fire raged with amazing fury and power,—stimulated to madness as it were, by the pitch, and tar, and dried timbers, and other combustible materials used in the constriction of the boat. The lurid flames ascended to a great height,—the smoke rolled upward in majestic volumes, while the light, ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone

... place down in Mississippi. My papa's papa come from Georgia. He had a tar kiln; he cut splinters put them on it. It would smoke blackest smoke and drip for a week. He used it to grease the hubs of the wagons. We drunk pine tar tea for coughs. He split rails, made boards and shingles ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... murdered, and Ma called me, and I came down in my night-shirt, and the hired girl she came down, and Pa was on the lounge, and he said his life-blood was fast ebbing away. He held his hand on the wound, and said he could feel the warm blood trickling clear down to his boots. I told Pa to stuff some tar into the wound, such as he told me to put on my lip to make my mustache grow, and Pa said, 'My boy, this is no time for trifling. Your Pa is on his last legs. When I came up stairs I met six burglars, and I attacked them, and forced four of them down, and was going ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck

... province, at Cape St Helena in the province of Guayaquil, there are certain springs or mineral veins which give out a species of bitumen resembling pitch or tar, and which is applied to the same purposes. The Indians of that country pretend that in ancient times it was inhabited by giants, who were four times the height of ordinary men[16]. The Spaniards saw two representations of these giants at Puerto viejo, one of a man and the other of a woman, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... Antelope had made several voyages during the past few months, and now presented herself to the eye of the spectator not much changed from her former self. A fine fresh coat of coal tar had but recently ornamented her fair exterior, while a coat of whitewash inside the hold had done much to drive away the odor of the fragrant potato. Rigging and sails had been repaired as well as circumstances would permit, and in the opinion ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... circuit was "down" for thirty-six days in the first six months. The little glass-knob insulators made seductive targets for ignorant sportsmen. Attempts to insulate the line wire were limited to coating it with tar or smearing it with wax for the benefit of all the bees in the neighborhood. The farthest western reach of the telegraph lines in 1847 was Pittsburg, with three-ply iron wire mounted on square glass insulators with a little wooden pentroof for protection. In that office, where ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... be the starting points, but by-and-by Elvire shall stand for all that is permanent and substantial in thought and feeling, Fifine for all that is transitory and illusive. The question of conjugal fidelity is as much the subject of Fifine at the Fair as the virtue of tar-water is the subject of Berkeley's Siris. The poem is in fact Browning's Siris—a chain of thoughts and feelings, reaching with no break in the chain, from a humble basis to the ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... was built of poplar logs, hewed and dovetailed at the corners with the skill of the Ontario woodsman. It was about twelve by sixteen feet in size, with collar-beams eight feet from the floor. The roof was of two thicknesses of elm boards, with tar-paper between. The floor was of poplar boards. The door was in the east side, near the south-east corner; the stove stood about the centre of the east wall. The only window was in the south; six panes of eight-by-ten glass sufficed for light. Through ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... thrust into the guardhouse for buying anything of a soldier against the law. He had only the bare floor to sleep on. In the morning, Lieutenant-Colonel Nesbit ordered the soldiers to strip off Ditson's clothes, and tar and feather him. ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... pale and nervous, and no wonder; and his voice shook as he strove to make himself heard. His words were drowned immediately by shouts of "Seize him! Seize the d—d traitor!" "A pot and a coat of hot tar!" ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... man's daughter thought it was time to go home; but as she went, her ring caught on the latch of the door, for the King's son had had it smeared with tar. She did not take time to pull it off, but, hastily unfastening her horse from the pillar, she rode away beyond the castle walls as swift as an arrow. Arrived at home, she took off her clothes by the birch tree, left her horse ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... flew every gallant tar, But one—bereft of ev'ry joy; Within a hammock's narrow bound, Lay stretch'd this hapless ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... the exhausted swimmers sent bright streaks of watershine wavering up the green hull over Madden's head. Utter silence pervaded the vessel. There was no creaking of spar or block. Hot tar stood in her seams ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling

... is becoming or graceful. Port, manner of movement or walk. At-tire', dress, clothes. Tar'-nish, to soil, to sully. Av'a-lanche, a vast body of snow, earth, and ice, sliding down from a mountain. Vouch-safes', yields, conde-scends, gives. Wan'ton, luxuriant. Net'ted, caught in a net. Fledge'ling, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... approved tree surgery practices. In shade tree work, quite a variety of substances have been used to fill cavities with more or less success; e. g., wood blocks and strips, asphalt and sawdust, asphalt and sand, clear coal tar, clear asphalt, elastic cement, magnesian cement, Roman (or Portland) cement, etc. Of these only two—wooden blocks and Portland cement, have been in general use more than a few years. Blocks of wood were ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... fell into their wake and followed at a distance, hoping that one might prove slower than the others, or that they might in the night get separated. At nightfall, however, the Danes lit cressets of tar and hemp, which enabled them not only to keep close together, but sent out a wide circle of light, so that they could perceive the Dragon should she venture ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... and the burden of his cry is, "There is a large supply of fresh haddies in the market!" The walls are placarded with advertisements of sheep smearing and dipping substances; the leading ingredients of which appear to be tar and butter. A recruiting sergeant of the Scots Fusilier Guards is standing by the Clachnacudden Stone, apparently in some dejection owing to the little business doing in his line. Men don't come to the "Character" Fair to 'list. It strikes ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... horrible modes of torture and excruciating methods of producing pain vied with each other in satisfying the demands of death. Women bound to raging bulls and dragged to death were not without the companionship of others who, in the evening, in Nero's garden, were coated with pitch, covered with tar, bound to stakes of pine, lighted with fire, and sent to run aflame with the hatred of Christianity. Through the crowd of sufferers a gentleman, who was ultra-liberal as the orator, drove about, fantastically ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... and by its presence excites the cells of certain tissues to grow in tumor form. It is known that active growth of the cells of the body can be excited in a number of ways, by chemical substances such as certain of the coal tar products, and that it often takes place under the influence of bacteria. It is further known that parasites can produce tumor-like growths in plants. The large, rough excrescences on the oaks are produced ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman

... for the distribution of ideas and trade secrets. For years, these great commercial companies supplied all the countries of the world not only with dyestuffs and other chemical products but also with medicines discovered by their chemists and made from coal tar; which, although really nothing more than patent medicines, were put upon the market as new and great and beneficial discoveries in medicine. The Badische Anilin and Soda Fabrik, with a capital of fifty-four million marks has paid dividends in the ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard

... was he to regain his full vigor and be able to eat and drink everything forbidden by the Doctors, he would fall for every kind of Dope made from Coal Tar. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... specializes in tobacco shops, where you will find many brands that require a strong head. Red Snapper, Panhandle Scrap, Pinch Hit, Red Horse, Brown's Mule, Jolly Tar, Penn Statue Cuttings, Nickel Cross Cut, Cotton Ball Twist. In the shop windows you will see those photographs illustrating current events, the two favourites just now being a picture of Mike Gilhooley, the famous stowaway, gazing plaintively at the profile of New York, and "Jack Dempsey Goes ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... last batch of sheep were fleeced and smitten,[Smitten. Marked with the cipher of the owner in a mixture mostly of tar.] and turned on to the hillside; and Charlotte, leaning over the wall, watched them wander contentedly up the fell, with their lambs trotting beside them. Grandfather and the squire had gone into the house; Ducie ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... is smeared upon the arrow. It is brought from a great distance, from some country far west of Gondokoro. The juice of the species of euphorbia, common in these countries, is also used for poisoning arrows. Boiled to the consistence of tar, it is then smeared upon the blade. The action of the poison is to corrode the flesh, which loses its fiber, and drops away like jelly, after severe inflammation and swelling. The arrows are barbed with diabolical ingenuity; some ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... British Navy was but twenty-three years old. He was a draftsman, a geographer, a mathematician and a navigator. He had sailed around the world as a plain tar, and taken his kicks and cuffs with good grace. At the Portsmouth Naval School he had won a gold medal for proficiency in study, and another medal had been given him for heroism in leaping from a sailing-ship into the sea to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... light like a fountain. Diamonds glitter on her bulbous fingers And on her arms, great as thighs, Diamonds gush from her ear-lobes over the goitrous throat. She is obesely beautiful. Her eyes are full of bleared lights, Like little pools of tar, spilled by a sailor in mad haste for shore... And her mouth is scarlet and full—only a little crumpled— like a flower that has ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... rock, mineral crystal, mineral oil; vegetable oil, colza oil^, olive oil, salad oil, linseed oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, nut oil; animal oil, neat's foot oil, train oil; ointment, unguent, liniment; aceite^, amole^, Barbados tar^; fusel oil, grain oil, rape oil, seneca oil; hydrate of amyl, ghee^; heating oil, 2 oil, No. 2 oil, distillate, residual oils, kerosene, jet ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... paper on the ends. In some cases abroad paper is glued on to all the surfaces of valuable exotic balks. Other substances sometimes employed for the purpose of sealing the wood are grease, carbolineum, wax, clay, petroleum, linseed oil, tar, and soluble glass. In place of solid beams, built-up material is often preferable, as the disastrous results of season checks are thereby largely ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... there was, methinks, a tanning principle which hardened and consolidated the fibres of men's thoughts. Ah! already I shudder for these comparatively degenerate days of my native village, when you cannot collect a load of bark of good thickness,—and we no longer produce tar and turpentine. ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... eligible to serve." The judge groaned. "You should be thankful them pistols wasn't drawed on you, sir," said the sheriff amiably. "You've got a heap to be grateful about; for we've had one lynching, and we've rid one or two parties on a rail after giving 'em a coat of tar and feathers." ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... that they instinctively detect the "know nothings," who are uniformly treated with an indifference suited to their culpable ignorance. Even the "old salt" on the forecastle has an instinct for a brother tar, though a passenger, and a due respect is paid to Neptune in answering his inquiries, while half the time the maiden traveller meets with a grave equivoque, a marvel, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... may be introduced. In addition to variations in the tests, due to changes in construction in the combustion chamber, there will be variations in the fuels tested. Especial effort will be made to procure fuels ranging in volatile content from 15 to 27 and to 40%, and those high in tar and heavy hydro-carbons. It is also proposed to vary the conditions of testing by burning at high rates, such as at 15, 20, and 30 lb. per ft. of grate surface, and even higher. Records will be kept of the weight ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson

... adding to the night, blurring the village to a few gleams of fire. On the broad sandy beach he could just see the outlines of the boats and the fishing-nets. He leaned against the gunwale of a pink, inhaling the scents of tar and brine, and watching the apparent movement seawards of some dark sailing-vessel which, despite the great red anchor at his feet, seemed to sail outwards ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... yo'. Dat finger jes' am awful, but I knows what'll cure it in no time. Here, yo', Gustus, yo' run and fetch me some tar. Hurry, yo' lazy niggah yo'. Dar, dar, honey chile, it'll be all right in no time. Tar am jes' fine for ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine



Words linked to "Tar" :   Tar Heel State, steerer, crewman, bosun, ship's officer, lighterman, steersman, sea lawyer, bos'n, bitumen, officer, coal-tar creosote, pine tar, bargee, tar-and-feather, bargeman, helmsman, jack, bo's'n, sailor, able-bodied seaman, coat, seaman, able seaman, boatswain, Jack-tar, roustabout, pilot, surface, deckhand, bo'sun, whaler, coal tar



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