# tartan
## English
### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈtɑːt(ə)n/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* (General American) IPA: /ˈtɑɹtn̩/, [-ɾn̩]
* (Scotland) IPA: /ˈtɑɹt(ə)n/, /ˈtæɹ-/
* Homophone: Tartan
* Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)tən
* Hyphenation: tar‧tan

### Etymology 1

The noun is an unadapted borrowing from Scots tartan, from Old Scots tartane, tertane, probably from Old French tertaine, tiretaine (“cloth of wool mixed with cotton or linen”), probably from tiret (“kind of precious cloth”) + -aine modelled after futaine (“woven cloth made from cotton mixed with linen or silk”). Tiret is derived from tire (“kind of silk cloth”), from Medieval Latin tyrium (“cloth dyed with Tyrian purple”), a noun use of Latin tyrium, an inflection of tyrius (“of Tyre, Tyrian”), from Latin Tyrus (“Phoenician city of Tyre (in modern Lebanon)”) (from Ancient Greek Τῠ́ρος (Tŭ́ros), from Phoenician 𐤑𐤓 (ṣr) or 𐤑𐤅𐤓 (ṣwr)) + -ius (suffix forming adjectives).
Another suggestion is that the Scots noun is from Middle English tartaryn (“rich cloth (probably silk) imported from the East, probably from China through Tartary”), from Old French (drap) tartarin (literally “cloth of Tartary”), from Medieval Latin Tartarīnus (“of Tartary or the Tatars”), from Latin Tartarus, Tatarus (“Tatar person”) + -īnus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives). However, the Oxford English Dictionary notes that tartarin referred to a more expensive fabric.
Noun sense 2.2 (“type of fly used in fly fishing”) may refer to its use in Scotland: see the 1837 quotation. Sense 2.3 (“young person who is a member of a Protestant gang in Northern Ireland”) is from the fact that they were traditionally supporters of Rangers Football Club based in Glasgow, Scotland.
The adjective is from an attributive use of the noun, while the verb is also derived from the noun.

#### Noun

tartan (countable and uncountable, plural tartans) (originally Scotland)
* (uncountable) Woven woollen fabric with a distinctive pattern of coloured stripes intersecting at right angles originally associated with Scottish Highlanders, now with different clans (though this only dates from the late 18th century) and some Scottish families and institutions having their own patterns; (countable) a particular type of such fabric.
    Synonyms: (one sense) plaid, Scotch plaid
    Coordinate term: flannel
** 1818 July 25, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter II, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume II, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, →OCLC, pages 48–49:Her hands trembled […] as she adjusted the scarlet tartan screen or muffler made of plaid, which the Scottish women wore, much in the fashion of the black silk veils still a part of female dress in the Netherlands.
** 1851, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XIII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume III, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 354:The country which lay just above this pass was now the theatre of a war such as the Highlands had not often witnessed. Men wearing the same tartan, and attached to the same lord, were arrayed against each other.
** (countable) A pattern used on such fabric.
** (uncountable) Clothing made from this fabric.
*** 1786, Robert Burns, “The Vision”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. […], 2nd edition, volume I, Edinburgh: […] T[homas] Cadell, […], and William Creech, […], published 1793, →OCLC, duan first, page 142:Dovvn flovv'd her robe, a tartan ſheen, / Till half a leg vvas ſcrimply ſeen; […]
* (figurative)
** (countable) An individual who wears tartan (sense 1.2); specifically, a Scottish Highlander, or a Scottish person (chiefly a Scotsman) in general.
** (countable, fishing) A type of fly used in fly fishing, often to catch salmon.
*** 1837, John Kirkbride, “Salmon-fishing”, in The Northern Angler; or, Fly-fisher’s Companion, Carlisle, Cumbria: C[harles] Thurnam; London: Edwards, […]; [Charles] Tilt, […], →OCLC, page 73:What is called the tartan-fly kills well in the Highlands at the clearing of the water. The tail must be yellow, mixed with a little red; and tipt with silver-thread; the body must be of five or six different colours, yellow, blue, orange, green, red, and black; the colours must join; […]
** (countable, UK) A young person who is a member of a Protestant gang in Northern Ireland.
*** 1977, Peter Carter, chapter 3, in Under Goliath, London: Puffin Books in association with Oxford University Press, published 1980, →ISBN, page 15:The Shankill was a tough district all right. It was really hard-line Protestant and most of the kids were in tough Prod gangs, like the Tartans.
** (uncountable) Preceded by the: a group of people customarily wearing tartan; Scottish Highlanders or Scottish people collectively; also, the soldiers of a Scottish Highland regiment collectively.
*** 1895, Archibald Forbes, “The Indian Mutiny—Organisation—Relief of Lucknow—Defeat of Gwalior Contingent”, in Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 127:Sir Colin [Campbell] called to Colonel [John Frederick] Ewart, 'Ewart, bring on the tartan!'; his bugler sounded the advance, and the seven companies of the Ninety-Third [(Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot] dashed from behind the bank.
* (uncountable, chiefly attributive) Originally a trade name in the form Tartan: a synthetic resin used for surfacing ramps, running tracks, etc.
** 2012, Peter Matthews, “All-weather tracks”, in Historical Dictionary of Track and Field (Historical Dictionaries of Sports), Lanham, Md.: The Scarecrow Press, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 23:Bob Hayes ran a world record 9.1 for 100 y[ards] on a Tartan-surface track in St. Louis in 1963, and Tartan tracks (manufactured by 3M) were installed for the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1967, and for the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968.
** 2024, Regina Toedter, “Running Around”, in Fun Running, Norderstedt, Schleswig-Holstein: Books on Demand, →ISBN, page 55:Running tracks are also known as tartan tracks. One lap of a tartan track is usually 400 metres, so it is easy to keep track of your running performance.
* (uncountable, Scotland) Short for tartan-purry (“a porridge made from cabbage mixed with oatmeal”).
** 1890 June 14, “In Praise of the Horn Spoon”, in The Scots Observer: An Imperial Review, volume IV, number 82, Edinburgh; London: […] T[homas] & A[rchibald David] Constable, […], at the Edinburgh University Press [for] John Douglas, […], →OCLC, page 92:But of oatmeal we have tartan—tartan purry it was sometimes called, and probably therefore was a partially French invention—a pudding made chiefly of chopped kale and oatmeal; […]

##### Derived terms

* tartana (obsolete, rare)
* tartanization
* tartanize
* tartanry
* tartans (plural only)

##### Related terms

* tartan-purry

##### Descendants

* → Catalan: tartà
* → Scottish Gaelic: tartan

##### Translations
#### Adjective

tartan (comparative more tartan, superlative most tartan)
* Made of tartan (noun sense 1), or having a distinctive pattern of coloured stripes intersecting at right angles like a that of a tartan.
** 1786, Robert Burns, “The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer, to the Right Honourable and Honourable, the Scotch Representatives in the House of Commons”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. […], 2nd edition, volume I, Edinburgh: […] T[homas] Cadell, […], and William Creech, […], published 1793, →OCLC, page 30:Her tartan petticoat ſhe'll kilt, / An' durk an' piſtol at her belt, / She'll tak the ſtreets, / An' rin her vvhittle to the hilt, / I' th' firſt ſhe meets!Her tartan petticoat she'll kilt [gather up], / And dirk [long dagger] and pistol at her belt, / She'll take the streets, / And run her whittle [knife] to the hilt, / In the first she meets!
** 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Arcadian Simplicity”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 88:[M]y pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets' daughters should.
** 1929, M. Barnard Eldershaw [pseudonym; Marjorie Barnard, Flora Eldershaw], chapter IX, in A House is Built, London; Bombay, Maharashtra: George G. Harrap & Co., →OCLC, section iii, page 225:In the second row of the cavalcade were Francie, Fanny's god-daughter, now thirteen years old and already elegant in long frilled pantalettes, tartan skirts, and a leghorn hat with streamers, […]
* (figurative, sometimes humorous) Of or relating to Scotland, its culture, or people; Scottish.

##### Derived terms

* Tartan Army
* tartan noir
* tartan tax
* Tartan Tory

##### Translations
#### Verb

tartan (third-person singular simple present tartans, present participle tartaning, simple past and past participle tartaned) (transitive)
* To clothe (someone) in tartan (noun sense 1.2).
** 1881 July 5 (date written), Archibald Campbell, quoting John F. Campbell, “Notes on the Antiquity of the Dress, Clan Colours, or Tartans, of the Highlanders [Early Notices of Tartan]”, in Records of Argyll: Legends, Traditions, and Recollections of Argyllshire Highlanders […], Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, published 1885, →OCLC, pages 441–442:That 42d tartan is Campbell tartan rests upon the fact that the Black Watch was officered by a large majority of Campbells at first. When I was first tartaned, more than fifty years ago, I was taken by John Campbell, piper, to the shop of his brother William, in Glasgow, to be tailored.
** 2015, Rodney Castleden, “The Nineteenth Century Viking Craze”, in Vikings: Raiders, Traders and Masters of the Sea, New York, N.Y.: Chartwell Books, Quarto Publishing Group, →ISBN, part 6 (The Lasting Legacy), pages 158–159:The Celtic Society of Edinburgh was founded in 1820, its members dining in kilts. In 1820–22, the novelist Walter Scott worked away at the tartaning of Scotland in the run-up to a landmark visit by George IV, when even the fat king would be wearing full Scottish tartan.
** 2016 September, Sally Odgers, The Peacock’s Pearl (Cat Mahal is Magic; 1), [Latrobe, Tas.]: Prints Charming Books, →ISBN, page 236:Grandpa, tartaned to the max, larger than life, meekly trotted back to the car to let Grandma's familiar [a cat] out.
** 2016 December 6, R[obert] J. R. Rockwood, “Only the Statues are Whole”, in The Primrose Path, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN:When they entered the kitchen, Craig, who loved plaids and was wearing a plaid shirt, was amazed to find his host tartaned out in a plaid pattern that was repeated from head to foot: […]
* To apply a tartan pattern to (something).
** 1873 July 26, “Blue-jackets’ Pets”, in William and Robert Chambers, editors, Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Art, volume X (4th Series), number 500, London; Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers […], →OCLC, page 466, column 1:The unholy beast in the box was the most splendid and graceful specimen of the monitor lizard I have ever seen. […] Smooth, though scaly, and inky black, tartaned all over with transverse rows of bright yellow spots, with eyes that shone like wild-fire, and teeth like quartz, with his forked tongue continually flashing out from his bright-red mouth, he had a wild, weird loveliness that was most uncanny.A figurative use.
** 1992 spring, Ian McKay, quoting J. H. Macdonald, “Tartanism Triumphant: The Construction of Scottishness in Nova Scotia, 1933–1954”, in Acadiensis: Journal of the History of the Atlantic Region‎, volume 21, number 2, Fredericton, N.B.: Department of History, University of New Brunswick, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-08-12, page 31:[W]hy shouldn't the waitresses in the dining room, each one of them already attired in a distinctive clan tartan, be required to carry a small card identifying the tartan for the convenience of diners who might want to purchase tartaned gifts after their meal?An adjective use.
* (figurative) To make (something) Scottish, or more Scottish; to tartanize.
** 1992 spring, Ian McKay, “Tartanism Triumphant: The Construction of Scottishness in Nova Scotia, 1933–1954”, in Acadiensis: Journal of the History of the Atlantic Region‎, volume 21, number 2, Fredericton, N.B.: Department of History, University of New Brunswick, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-08-12, page 31:The premier [Angus Lewis Macdonald] was photographed repeatedly at the annual Gaelic Mod, and sitting at a loom in a display of Highland handicrafts in Scotland itself. The premier also focused his attention on the tartaning of the provincially owned Keltic Lodge.
** 2005, Aaron Kelly, “Introduction: Irvine Welsh and the ‘Long Dark Night of Late Capitalism’”, in Irvine Welsh, Manchester; New York, N.Y.: Manchester University Press, →ISBN, page 28:Hence, Edinburgh's working class has conventionally been doubly excluded and marginalised. […] [S]econdly, within a nationalist paradigm, by the ‘tartaning up’ of that same city centre – the concomitant tourist culture of Scotland as a national heritage site. The Edinburgh of romantic or puritanical nationalism myth has no imaginative or social space for an urban working class.

##### Derived terms

* tartaned (adjective)

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

Borrowed from French tartane, from Italian tartana; further origin uncertain, said to be from Arabic [script needed] (tarīdah, “type of fast ship”) but according to the Oxford English Dictionary there is insufficient evidence for this.

#### Noun

tartan (plural tartans)
* (nautical) A type of one-masted vessel with a lateen sail and a foresail, used in the Mediterranean.
** 1697, William Dampier, chapter III, in A New Voyage Round the World. […], London: […] James Knapton, […], →OCLC, page 30:[W]e met Captain VVright, vvho came thither the day before; and had taken a Spaniſh Tartan, vvherein vvere 30 men, all vvell armed: […] VVe that came over Land out of the South Seas being vveary of living among the French, deſired Captain VVright to fit up his Prize the Tartan, and make a Man of VVar of her for us, […]
** 1878, Jules Verne, “An Unexpected Population”, in Ellen E[lizabeth] Frewer, transl., Hector Servadac. […] [Off on a Comet], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., →OCLC, part I, pages 138–139:Nearly the whole of his time, however, he informed Captain Servadac, had been spent upon the sea, his real business being that of a merchant trading at all the ports of the Mediterranean. A tartan, a small vessel of two hundred tons burden, conveyed his entire stock of merchandise, and, to say the truth, was a sort of floating emporium, conveying nearly every possible article of commerce, from a lucifer match to the radiant fabrics of Frankfort and Epinal.
** 1896, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Peace of Amiens”, in Rodney Stone, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, page 58:When we were watching Massena, off Genoa, we got a matter of seventy schooners, brigs, and tartans, with wine, food, and powder.
* (Can we verify this sense?)(historical) A kind of long covered carriage.

##### Alternative forms

* tartana, tartane

##### Translations
### References

* 1 2 “tartan, n., adj., v.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.
* 1 2 3 “tartan, n.$^1$”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2024; “tartan$^1$, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
* ↑ “tartan”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
* ↑ “Tartarī̆n, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
* ↑ “† tartarin | tartarine, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023.
* ↑ “tartan$^1$, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
* ↑ “tartan, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2023.
* ↑ “tartan | tartane, n.$^2$”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023.

### Further reading

* tartan on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

### Anagrams

* Rattan, Tatran, rattan, tantra

## Danish
### Etymology

From English tartan.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /tartan/, [ˈtˢɑːtˢan]

### Noun

tartan n or c (singular definite tartanet or tartanen)
* tartan (woollen cloth with a distinctive pattern)
* tartan (synthetic resin, used for surfacing tracks etc.) [from 1969]

#### Related terms

* skotskternet

## Dutch
### Etymology

Borrowed from English tartan.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈtɑr.tɑn/, (colloquial) /tɑrˈtɑn/
* Audio:(file)
* Hyphenation: tar‧tan

### Noun

tartan n or m (plural tartans)
* tartan (woollen cloth with a distinctive pattern of intersecting orthogonal coloured stripes, associated with Scottish Highlanders)
* a kilt or cloak made of tartan

#### Usage notes

Neuter gender is usually preferred for the mass noun denoting the fabric while masculine is preferred for countable nouns, but the distinction is not observed as clearly for this word as it is for other terms that are both mass nouns and countable nouns.

#### Related terms

* tierelantijn

## French
### Pronunciation

* Audio:(file)

### Noun

tartan m (plural tartans)
* tartan

### Further reading

* “tartan”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

## Polish
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈtar.tan/
* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -artan
* Syllabification: tar‧tan

### Etymology 1

Borrowed from English tartan, from Middle English tartaryn, from Middle French tartarin, tiretaine, from Old French tiret, from tire, from Medieval Latin tyrius, from Latin Tyrus, from Ancient Greek Τύρος (Túros), from Phoenician 𐤑𐤅𐤓 (ṣwr).

#### Noun

tartan m inan
* tartan (woollen cloth with a distinctive pattern of intersecting orthogonal coloured stripes, associated with Scottish Highlanders)
* tartan (pattern associated with such material)
* clothing made of such fabric
* (athletics) tartan track (all-weather synthetic track surfacing made of polyurethane used for track and field competitions)
* (athletics, colloquial) tartan track (stadium or running track covered with such material)

##### Derived terms

* tartanowy

### Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

#### Noun

tartan f
* genitive plural of tartana

### Further reading

* tartan in Polish dictionaries at PWN

## Romanian
### Etymology

Borrowed from French tartan.

### Noun

tartan n (plural tartane)
* tartan

#### Declension
## Scottish Gaelic
### Etymology

From English tartan.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈtʰarˠʃtan/

### Noun

tartan m (genitive singular tartain, plural tartain)
* tartan (woollen cloth with a distinctive pattern)

#### Declension

$^✝$ obsolete form, used until the 19th century

### Mutation

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Scottish Gaelic. All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.