"T" Word Origins

tartare

French

From French tartare, literally meaning "Tartar," referencing the (largely legendary) idea that Tartars ate raw meat.

tartarean

Origin

From Tartare + -an, from Latin Tartare (“of Tartarus”).

tartarian

Origin

From Tartar + -ian.

Tartarus

Ancient Greek

From Latin Tartarus, borrowed from Ancient Greek Tártaros.

tartness

Origin

From Middle English *tartnesse, from Old English teartnes (“sharpness, severity, asperity”), equivalent to tart + -ness.

tarty

Origin

From tart + -y.

Tarun

Sanskrit

Borrowed from Sanskrit taruṇa.

Taryn

Origin · 1900

A 20th-century invented name, likely blending "Tara" with names like "Karen."

Tarzan

Origin · 1912

Invented by the author Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912 for his fiction.

TAS

Origin

The verb sense is derived from the noun sense.

tase

Origin

A back-formed verb from "taser," treating the "-er" ending as a normal verb suffix.

taser

Origin · 1970

Originally a trademark, coined in the early 1970s as the acronym TSER (later TASER) after the fictional "Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle"; the name has since become a generic term for any stun gun.

Tash

Origin

A clipped form of "Natasha."

Tasha

Origin

A clipped form of "Natasha."

task

Latin

From Old Northern French tasque, ultimately from Latin taxō, meaning to assess or charge — making "task" a doublet of "tax."

taskmaster

Origin

A compound of "task" and "master."

Tasmania

Dutch · 1642

Named after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who charted the island in 1642.

tassel

Latin

From Old French tassel, from Latin tāxillus (small cube/die), related to tālus, meaning ankle.

taste

Latin

From Old French taster, meaning to touch, feel, or taste, going back to a Latin word meaning to touch sharply — related to "tangent" and "tangible."

tasteful

Origin

From taste + -ful.

tasteless

Origin

From taste + -less.

taster

Middle English

From Middle English taster, simply taste plus the agent suffix -er — "one who tastes."

tasting

Middle English

From Middle English tastynge, formed from taste plus the -ing ending.

tasty

Origin

From taste plus the adjective suffix -y.

tat

Hindi

The "junk" sense traces back to a Hindi word for coarse canvas cloth (ṭāṭ); the lace-making sense is a separate word thought to come from Scandinavian roots.

Tata

Origin

Probably hypocoristic, circa 1823.

tatar

Origin

From Old Turkic 𐱃𐱃𐰺 (t¹t¹r¹). More at Tatars.

tate

Japanese

Borrowed from Japanese 縦 (tate).

tater

Origin

A casual, clipped pronunciation of "potato" — the same pattern that gives 'mater for tomato and 'naner for banana.

taters

Origin

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Tates

Origin

Variant of Tate, with excrescent -s.

Tatiana

Latin

Popular saints' name in the Eastern Orthodox Church, feminine of Latin Tatiānus, from Tatius (a Roman family name of obscure origin) + -ānus. Modern English usage is derived from Russian Татья́на (Tatʹjána).

tatter

Origin

From Middle English tater, from Old Norse tǫturr, from Proto-Germanic *tat(t)uraz (“tuft, patch”). Cognate with Icelandic tötur (“rag, tatter”).

tatterdemalion

Origin

First attested circa 1608. An early spelling was tatter-de-mallion, rhymed with Italian. The first part of the word is tatter; the origin of the second part is uncertain; Ebenezer Cobham Brewer suggested it might be from de maillot (“shirt”).

tattered

Middle English

From Middle English tatered, related to Old Norse tǫturr ("rag"); later reanalysed as the past participle of the verb "to tatter."

tatters

Old English

Related to Old English tættec, meaning a torn scrap or rag.

tattle

Germanic

From Middle Dutch tatelen/tateren ("to babble, chatter"), an imitative word echoed across several Germanic languages.

tattler

Origin

From tattle + -er.

tattletale

Origin

A compound of tattle and tale.

tattoo

Origin

Borrowed via English sailors from a Polynesian word (Samoan tatau), which itself meant both "to strike" and "tattoo," reflecting how the ink was traditionally tapped into the skin.

tatty

Origin

From tatter + -y.

Tatum

Old English

From Tatham, from Old English Tāta, a personal name of unknown meaning + hām.

Tau

Middle English

From Middle English tau, taue, from Latin tau, from Ancient Greek ταῦ (taû) and Hebrew תָּו (tav). Sense 7 was used by Joseph M. Lindenberg in 1991, and popularized by the American educator and entrepreneur Michael Hartl in a 2010 paper which explains that τ resembles π; and that τ is the Greek equivalent of t, the first letter of turn, and 2π corresponds to one turn of a circle with a radius of one unit. Sense 8.1 (“ellipsis of tau lepton or tau particle”) was coined by the American physicist Martin Lewis Perl (1927–2014) after the first letter of Ancient Greek τρίτον (tríton, “third”), since the tau lepton or tauon was the third charged lepton discovered.

taughten

Origin

Inherited from Middle English toght (“stretched, strained, tight”).

taunt

Middle French

From Middle French tanter ("to tempt, provoke"), a variant of the word that also gave English "tempt" — the two are historical doublets.

taunting

Origin

From taunt plus -ing.

Taurus

Ancient Greek

From Latin taurus ("bull"), going back to Ancient Greek Taûros, ultimately from a much older Sumerian phrase describing the "Bull of Heaven."

taut

Middle English

From Middle English forms related to tough and to the verb "to draw or pull tight" — its spelling and sense later merged with those roots.