▪ I. tallow, n.
(ˈtæləʊ)
Forms: α. 4 talȝ, talwgh, 4–5 talwȝ, 5 talgh(e; Sc. 5–6 talch, 6 tawlche, tawche, tauche, tawcht, 6–7 tauch, 7–8 taulch, 9 taugh. β. 4 talowȝ, 4–6 talow(e, 5 talogh, -ough, -owgh, talwhe, talwe, 5–6 talugh(e, talo, 5–7 tallo, tallowe, 6– tallow. γ. Sc. 5–6 tallone, -own(e, 5–7 -on, -oun(e, 9 dial. tallan, -in.
[ME. talȝ, talgh, known first in 14th c.; corresponds to MLG. talg, talch, LG. talg, in early mod.Du. talg, talch (16th c.), Du. talk fem. and Ger. talg, in 1572 talck masc.; MIcel. (14th c.) tólg, tólk, MDa. (13th c.) talgh, talwh, MSw. talgh(er), mod.Icel. tólg, Norw., Da., Sw. talg, Norw. dial. tolg, taag, taalg, t{obar}lg, Fær. tálg.
These forms indicate a common origin, but nowhere has the word yet been found before the 13th c. In the Scandinavian langs. a great diversity of gender suggests that the word is borrowed from MLG.; the ME. may have had a similar origin, but the parallelism of Eng. sallow, Sc. sauch,:—OE. sealh, Anglian salh, suggests for Eng. tallow, Sc. tauch, an OE. *tealh, *talh, = OLG. *talg, talh. Ulterior etymology unknown.]
1. a. The fat or adipose tissue of an animal, esp. that which yields the substance described in 2; suet.
| α 1382 Wyclif Ecclus. xlvii. 2 As talȝ [1388 ynnere fatnesse] seuered fro the flesh. 14.. Med. Receipts in Rel. Ant. I. 53 Fresch talgh of a schepe. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 486/1 Talwhe (Pynson talowe), cepum. 15.. Aberdeen Regr. XXI. (Jam.), Scheip tawcht & nolt tawcht. 1871 Waddell Ps. in Scottis xvii. 10 They're theekit about wi' their ain taugh. |
| β 1382 Wyclif Exod. xxiii. 18 [Thow] shal not leeue the talowȝ of my solempnete vnto the morwen. c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 60 Take schepis talow [B.M. MS. schepys talwȝ]. c 1425 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 660/37 Hoc sepum, tallo. 1486 Bk. of St. Albans F ij, All beestis that beere talow and stonde vpright. 1518 Cov. Leet Bk. 663 That no bocher sell eny of his tallowe aboue ij.s. the ston. 1613 Markham Eng. Husb. ii. ii. vii. (1635) 90 Hee feeds fast, and his tallow wonderfully increaseth. 1787 Hunter in Phil. Trans. LXXVII. 389 Ruminating animals have that species of fat called tallow. 1897 G. H. Clark in Outing (U.S.) XXIX. 338/1 A much needed lunch of delicious reindeer tallow. |
† b. fig. ‘Fatness’, richness.
Obs.| c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 104 For þei [prelatis] ben so chokid wiþ talow of worldly goodis. |
2. A substance consisting of a somewhat hard animal fat (
esp. that obtained from the parts about the kidneys of ruminating animals, now chiefly the sheep and ox), separated by melting and clarifying from the membranes, etc., naturally mixed with it; used for making candles and soap, dressing leather, and other purposes. In
quot. 1590, dripping.
| α 13.. Coer de L. 1552 And wex sumdel caste thertoo, Talwgh and grese menge alsoo. c 1350 Usages Winchester in Eng. Gilds (1870) 359 Euerych sellere of grece and of smere and of talwȝ. c 1440 tr. Pallad. on Husb. i. 444 Thorgh the ston, yf that the water synke, Take picche & talgh, as need is the to spende. 1449 Aberdeen Regr. (1844) I. 402 That na man by talch mar than may suffice his houss. 14.. (MS. a 1600) Iter Camerar. c. 22 in Scotch Acts (1844) I. App. iv. 700/1 Þai suld gif þair lethir gude oyle and taulch [1609 Skene tauch]. 1505 Burgh Rec. Edinb. (1869) I. 107 It is..forbidden that any maner of persoun melt or rynde thair tawlche in fore housis on the hie gaitt. 1544 Aberdeen Regr. I. 207 Selling of tauch. 1548 Burgh Rec. Edinb. II. 141 [To] by na kitchein fie nor paynsche tawche. |
| β 1391 Earl Derby's Exped. (Camden) 71 Pro grees et talowe..emptis ibidem. 1413 Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton) ii. lxi. (1859) 58 Wax smelleth wors after it is quenchid, than doth ony talowe. 1496 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 177 Talowgh. Also payed..for dcc weight Talowe. 1529 Supplic. to King (E.E.T.S.) 32 A candell (which for lacke of talowe..can not geue light). 1541 Lanc. Wills (Chetham Soc.) I. 81 Hole cakes of rendred tallow. 1590 Shakes. Com. Err. iii. ii. 100 Her ragges and the Tallow in them, will burne a Poland Winter. 1623 Whitbourne Newfoundland 98 Diuersities of the ground..that hath come in the Tallo, on the end of the Lead. 1727–41 Chambers Cycl. s.v., There are scarce any animals but a sort of Tallow may be prepared from. 1839 Ure Dict. Arts, etc., Tallow..of the ox consists of 76 parts of stearine, and 24 of oleine. 1884 Harper's Mag. July 299/1 ‘Prime’ tallow is made from the kidney and caul fat only, while ‘regular’ tallow is made from the other fat, bones, and trimmings. |
| γ 1482 in Charters, etc. Edinb. (1871) 169 Buttir, vynagir, flesch, or tallone. 1497 Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scotl. I. 349 Item for xxiij pund of talloune to Mons. 1498 Reg. Privy Seal Scotl. I. 23/1 Gold, siluer, tallon and al uther gudis that ar forbiddin to be had furth of the realme. 1529 Rec. Edinb. (1871) 6 At na candilmakir melt thair tallone on the foirgait. 1542 Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scotl. VIII. 77 For viij dusane..girthis putt upon the talloun punscheonis. |
3. a. Applied to various kinds of grease or greasy substances,
e.g. those obtained from plants.
mineral tallow = hatchettite: see
mineral a. 5.
| 1745 P. Thomas Jrnl. Anson's Voy. 185 Of all the Trees that grow in China, that which produces Tallow is in my Opinion the most surprizing. 1860 [see bayberry 2]. |
b. (See
quot.)
local.
| 1876 Woodward Geol. Eng. & Wales vii. 185 Beautiful plumose stalactites are often found in the fissures of the rock, and are called by the workmen..tallow. |
4. Elliptical for
tallow candle.
| 1819 M. Wilmot Let. 21 Dec. (1935) 42 Wax candles are both bad, and dear. We use them of course, and tallows in the nursery and Kitchen. 1823 Blackw. Mag. XIII. 97 A little pair of tallows unsnuffed before him. 1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 22 Aug. 929/3 He would blow out his tallow behind Coloured glass. |
5. attrib. and
Comb. a. attrib. Made or consisting of tallow, as
tallow-ball,
tallow-cake,
tallow-dip (
dip n. 7),
tallow-grease,
tallow-soap; of, pertaining to, containing, or dealing in tallow, as
tallow-can,
tallow-crap (
crap n.1 3),
tallow-cup,
tallow-leaf (
leaf n.1 9),
tallow-light,
tallow-man.
b. objective, instrumental, similative, etc., as
tallow-boiler,
tallow-melter;
tallow-caked (
obs.),
tallow-coloured,
tallow-hued,
tallow-lighted,
tallow-like,
tallow-pale,
tallow-white adjs.| 1856 Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxxii. 448 A few rats chopped up and frozen into the *tallow-balls. |
| 1907 Westm. Gaz. 10 Dec. 9/2 The *tallow-boiler, the soap manufacturer, and a vast number of other dependent trades have been hard hit. |
| 1599 West Riding Sessions Rolls (Yorks. Rec. Series III.) 135 One *tallowe cake..felonice cepit. |
| 1577 tr. Bullinger's Decades (1592) 165 With face of *tallow caked hew. |
| 1877 Knight Dict. Mech., *Tallow-can, a vessel to hold melted tallow for lubricating purposes. |
| 1822 Scott Nigel x, His cheek was still pale and *tallow-coloured as before. |
| 1828 Craven Gloss., *Tallow-craps, the refuse or cracklings of tallow or hog's lard, after being rendered. 1863 Holme Lee Annie Warleigh III. 224 To eat us out o' house an' home, an' keep Magsie doing for iver wi' biscuit, an' tallow-crap. |
| 1877 Knight Dict. Mech., *Tallow-cup, a lubricating device for journal-boxes, etc., in which tallow is employed as the lubricant. |
| 1835 G. A. McCall Lett. fr. Frontiers (1868) 274, I set down the *tallow-dip upon the table. |
| 1768 Tucker Lt. Nat. (1834) I. 640 The unhappy negro..is thrown into a stinking hold, kept upon rotten pease besmeared over with *tallow grease. |
| 1824 Mactaggart Gallovid. Encycl. s.v., When an ox or a sheep has a gude *tallow-leaf, it is considered to have fed weel, and to be deep on the rib. |
| 1633 P. Fletcher Purple Isl. vii. xxxvii, *Tallow lights live glitt'ring, stinking die. 1825 Constable in Lockhart Scott lxii, I have hitherto been thinking only of the wax lights, but before I'm a twelvemonth older I shall have my hand upon the tallow. |
| 1879 G. J. Romanes in 19th Cent. Sept. 401 The *tallow-lighted blackness of our mines. |
| 1843 R. J. Graves Syst. Clin. Med. xxv. 326 Frequently they were combined with small *tallow-like sloughs of the mucous membrane at the angles of the mouth. 1860 Emerson Cond. Life, Beauty Wks. (Bohn) II. 435, I have noticed a block of spermaceti lying about..mantelpieces for twenty years.., simply because the tallowman gave it the form of a rabbit. |
| 1815 Chron. in Ann. Reg. 34/2 A very alarming fire broke out at Mr. Dunkin's, *tallow-melter, in Aldersgate Street. |
| 1596 Gosson Pleas. Quippes Upst. Gentlew. 98 in Hazl. E.P.P. IV. 254 But on each wight now are they seene, The *tallow-pale, the browning-bay. |
| 1906 Daily Chron. 23 Oct. 5/2 The use of the old-fashioned *tallow soaps. |
| 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. xxxiv. 303 His nose was *tallow-white. |
c. Special
Combs.:
tallow-berry, the edible fruit of a small malpighiaceous tree (
Byrsonima lucida) of the West Indies and Florida Keys; also called
glamberry (
Cent. Dict. 1891); also, the tree;
tallow-bush U.S. = tallow shrub;
tallow-cut a. = tallow-topped;
tallow-drop, chiefly
attrib., describing a style of cutting precious stones, by which one side is made smooth and convex, the other similarly convex, or flat, or concave;
tallow-gourd, an E. Indian climbing cucurbitaceous plant,
Benincasa cerifera (
B. hispida), so called from the waxy substance which exudes from its fruit when ripe; also called
wax-gourd,
white gourd;
tallow-loaf,
† (
a) a lump of tallow; also
fig.; (
b)
attrib. applied to a kind of cabbage (
cf. loaf n. 5), also called
drumhead (4);
tallow-nut, a thorny tree,
Ximenia americana (N.O.
Olacaceæ), native of tropical America, bearing a plum-like fruit containing a white seed or ‘nut’; also called
hog-plum, mountain-
plum;
tallow-nutmeg, a species of nutmeg-tree,
Myristica sebifera, native of tropical S. America, whose seed yields a concrete oil known as American nutmeg-oil, or virola-tallow;
tallow-oil, oil expressed from tallow;
tallow pot U.S. and
Austral. slang, the fireman on a locomotive engine;
tallow shrub, a N. American shrub,
Myrica cerifera, also called
bayberry (2),
candleberry (a), or
wax-myrtle, whose fruit yields a wax-like substance (
bayberry tallow) used for candles;
tallow-top, a precious stone cut in
tallow-drop fashion; also
attrib.; hence
tallow-topped a.;
tallow-wood, a large Australian tree,
Eucalyptus microcorys, which yields a very hard greasy wood. See also
tallow candle, -chandler, etc.
| 1835 W. G. Simms Partisan 387 The prisoners..had been made to file into the groves of *tallow bushes. |
| 1855 tr. Labarte's Arts Mid. Ages iv. 111 *Tallow-cut, that is, rounded and polished, in a convex shape, like the modern carbuncle. 1898 Athenæum 17 Sept. 391/2 A stone cut en cabochon—or tallow-cut, as the old term had it. |
| 1798 Greville in Phil. Trans. LXXXVIII. 411 Stones..of the common India polish and form, en cabochon, which is often called *tallow drop, from the French..term goutte de suif. 1891 Kipling Naulahka vi, It's a tallow-drop emerald. |
| 1483 Cath. Angl. 377/2 A *Talghe lafe (A. A Tallow lafe), congiarium. 1596 Nashe Saffron-Walden Wks. (Grosart) III. 183 The verie guts and garbage of his Note-book he hath put into this tallow loafe. 1780 Lett. & Pap. Bath Soc. I. 17 The sort principally raised is the tallow-loaf, or drum-head cabbage. 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. II. 682 Known in some districts by the name of the tallow loaf cabbage. |
| 1791 W. Bartram Trav. N. & S. Carolina 94 These shelly ridges have a vegetable surface of loose black mould, very fertile, which naturally produces..*Tallow-nut, or Wild Lime, and many others. 1884 C. S. Sargent Rep. Forests N. Amer. 34 Wild Lime. Tallow Nut... Common and reaching its greatest development in Florida. 1891 Cent. Dict., Tallow-nut. *Tallow-nutmeg. |
| 1914 Dialect Notes IV. 164 *Tallow pot,..the fireman of a locomotive. 1929 Bookman July 524/1 I'm surprised to find a student tallow-pot up in the cab takin' orders from the bakehead. 1960 Listener 18 Aug. 250/2 Firemen are ‘tallowpots’ or ‘bakebrains’. 1968 Amer. Speech XLIII. 289 Tallow pot,..originally, before the days of lube oil, a fireman was so-called because he had to get out onto the steam chest of the engine with a can of tallow and hold it so the lubricant would be drawn into the cylinder. |
| 1770 J. R. Forster tr. Kalm's Trav. N. Amer. I. 192 *Tallow shrub, or Candleberry Tree. 1866 Treas. Bot., Tallow-shrub, Myrica cerifera. |
| 1884 F. J. Britten Watch & Clockm. 208 Finishers generally use the old English screw head tool for producing the beautiful ‘*tallow top’ screws used in English work. |
| 1865 Emanuel Diamonds, etc. 144 The old English expression, *tallow-topped, which means cut, not in facets, but with a flat or hollow base, and a smooth convex top. |
| 1884 A. Nilson Timber Trees N.S.W. 67 *Tallowwood; Mahogany.—A tall tree, with a persistent furrowed fibrous bark. 1889 J. H. Maiden Usef. Plants Australia 493 In Queensland it is known as ‘Peppermint’... But its almost universal name is Tallow Wood... Used..for flooring, e.g. in ball-rooms. 1897 Melbourne Argus 22 Feb. 5/4 (Morris) That the New South Wales black butt and tallow wood were the most durable and noiseless woods for street-paving. |
▪ II. ˈtallow, v. Forms: see
prec. [f. prec. n.] 1. trans. To smear or anoint with tallow; to grease (formerly
esp. the bottom of a ship or boat).
| a 1400–50 Alexander 4208 Quen it [a barge] was done..pickid & taloghid. 1463 Mann. & Househ. Exp. (Roxb.) 220 To the schypmen that talluyd the shyp boot, vj. d. for wyne. c 1490 Promp. Parv. 486/1 (MS. A) Talwyn (Pynson talowyn), sepo. 1495 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 225 Talowe occupied abought talowying of the seid ship. 1497 Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scotl. I. 378 Item, for pyk to hir and to talloune hir. 1530 Palsgr. 752/1 Tallowe your shyppe or you go, it shall forther you moche on your waye. 1589 Warner Alb. Eng., Prose Add. (1612) 336 Commaund..that thy Shippes be secretly calked, tallowed, ballaced. 1706 E. Ward Wooden World Diss. (1708) 84 There's near as much Stuff drops from his Carcase every Day, as would tallow the Ship's Bottom. 1806 Pike Sources Mississ. (1810) 89 Tallowed my boats with our candles and launched them. 1886 J. K. Jerome Idle Thoughts vii, I..tallowed my nose, and went to bed. |
† b. intr. (for
refl.)
Obs.| 1666 Lond. Gaz. No. 28/3 The Forrester having washed and tallowed here, is gone to her station. 1720 De Foe Capt. Singleton xiv. (1840) 240 The sloop washed and tallowed also. |
2. a. intr. Of cattle, etc.: To form, produce, or yield tallow.
| a 1722 Lisle Husb. (1752) 262 Old cows generally tallowed best withinside. Ibid., Very rarely [for a young cow] to tallow well on the inside. 1796 Burke Let. Noble Ld. Wks. VIII. 63 Their only question will be..how he [the Duke of Bedford] cuts up? how he tallows in the cawl or on the kidneys? a 1843 Southey Comm.-pl. Bk. (1851) IV. 400/2 [Cattle] famous for..tallowing within in the first degree. |
b. trans. To cause (cattle, etc.) to form tallow; to fatten. (
Cf. tallowed 2.)
| 1765 Museum Rust. IV. xliv. 190 The largest pasture..will neither skin nor tallow, or, in other words, is fit for nothing but young stock. 1828 Webster, Tallow,..to cause to have a large quantity of tallow; as, to tallow sheep. |
Hence
ˈtallowing vbl. n. and ppl. a.| 1495 [see sense 1]. 1828 in Webster. |