▪ I. Tartarian, n. and a.1
(tɑːˈtɛərɪən)
Also 5–6 Tartarien, 9 Tatarian.
[c 1400 (see A) a. OF. Tartarien (13th c. in Godef.); later f. med.L. Tartaria Tartary + -an.]
A. n. = Tartar n.2 1.
| c 1400 Mandeville (1839) xxiii. 247 Of the lawe & the customs of the Tartarienes, duellynge in Chatay. Ibid. 252 Alle the Tartarienes [Roxb. xxvi. 124 Tartarenes] han smale eyen. 1538 Tartarien [see Russian n.1]. 1599 Thynne Animadv. (1875) 54 The Tartarians obteyned the kingdome of Syria in the yere 1240. 1708 E. Cook Sot-weed Factor (1900) 10 My Friend suppos'd Tartarians wild, Or Chinese from their Home exiled. 1835 K. H. Digby Mores Catholici vi. ii. (1846) II. 27/2 Fitter for those hords of Tartarians than for a commonwealth of Christians. |
b. ‘A cant word for a thief’ (Nares).
| 1608 Merry Devil Edmonton in Hazl. Dodsley X. 212 There's not a Tartarian nor a carrier shall breathe upon your geldings. 1640 Wandering Jew 3 (Nares) If any thieving Tartarian shall break in upon you, I will, with both hands nimbly lend a cast of my office to him. |
B. adj. Of or pertaining to Tartary or its people; = Tartar a.
| 1590 Webbe Trav. (Arb.) 18 The Tartarian Souldiers had wonderfull greate and rich spoyles. 1603 Knolles Hist. Turks (1638) 196 Tamerlane the great Tartarian prince,..in a great battell at mount Stella, abated the Othoman pride. 1634 W. Wood New Eng. Prosp. (1865) 30 As swift as arrow from Tartarian Bow. a 1725 Ld. Whitworth Acc. Russia in 1710 (1758) 9 Casan and Astracan were Tartarian kingdoms. 1839 For. Q. Rev. XXII. 109 Interesting to the readers of Tartarian tales. 1845 Proc. Philol. Soc. II. 171 The Tartarian class of languages..furnishes a valuable confirmation of this theory. |
b. In names of things of actual or supposed Tartar origin; as Tartarian bread (see quot. 1829); Tartarian lamb, the ‘Scythian’ or ‘vegetable lamb’, a polypodiaceous fern, Cibotium Barometz, from the resemblance which its woolly root-stock, inverted, bears to a lamb: see barometz, and cf. Maundeville (1839), ch. xxvi (Roxb. xxix). Also Tartarian cherry, Tartarian honeysuckle, Tartarian maple, Tartarian motherwort, Tartarian oat, etc., for which see the ns.
| 1805 Dickson Pract. Agric. I. 578 In the Siberian or Tartarian oat the grains are thin and small. 1811 Pinkerton Mod. Geogr. (ed. 3) 346 The..Tatarian honey-suckle, Tatarian mulberry, and the Daourian rose, form thickets of exquisite beauty. 1817 Shelley Rev. Islam vi. xix, A black Tartarian horse of giant frame Comes trampling o'er the dead. 1823 Crabb Technol. Dict., Tartarian lamb. 1829 Loudon Encycl. Plants 557 [Crambe] tatarica is called by the Hungarians Tatar-Kenyer or Tartarian bread, and its root stripped of the bark and sliced is eaten with oil, vinegar, and salt. 1836 Penny Cycl. VI. 431/2 The Tartarian cherries of the English gardens. 1866 Treas. Bot. 280/2 C[ibotium] Barometz, sometimes called C. glaucescens, is believed to be the Baranetz, Agnus Scythicus, or Tartarian Lamb, about which travellers have told so wondrous a tale. 1882 Garden 13 May 322/2 The ordinary white-flowered form of the Tartarian Honeysuckle [Lonicera tatarica]. |
▪ II. Tarˈtarian, a.2 rare.
[f. L. Tartar-us + -ian.]
Pertaining to Tartarus; infernal; = Tartarean a.1
| 1864 Kingsley Rom. & Teut. xi. 297 (tr. Ep. to Pepin an. 755) Lest your bodies and souls be torn and tormented for ever, in inextinguishable and Tartarian fire with the devil and his pestiferous angels. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 33 Cocytus and Styx,..and the rest of their Tartarian nomenclature. |