▪ I. tare, n.1
(tɛə(r))
Forms: 4– tare, pl. 4 taren, 4–5 taris, 5– tares; also 5 thare, 6 taar(e, terre, ter(e, 9 dial. tar, tor.
[A word of obscure origin and history: known first c 1330 in sense 1, also c 1400 in wiilde tare, a vetch of some kind, and in the later Wycliffite N. Test., 1388, used to render Gr. L. zīzania. For the form Kluge compares ODu. *taruwe, MDu. terwe, tarwe, a name of wheat, cogn. with Lith. dirva a wheat-field. But no satisfactory explanation has been offered of the transference of sense.]
1. a. The seed of a vetch: usually in reference to its small size. (Probably familiar in early times, as too frequently present in seed-corn.)
| c 1330 Arth. & Merl. (Kölbing) 7354 Þei our folk tohewen waren To smale morsels, so beþ taren. 1530 Palsgr. 279/1 Taare a corne lyke a pease, lupins. 1555 Eden Decades 9 Many of them [grains of gold]..were as bygge as tares or fytchis. 1576 Baker Jewell of Health 185 Take of this masse vnto the quantity of three Tares. 1657 R. Ligon Barbadoes 65 This vermine will get..under the nayl of your Toes, and there make a habitation..as bigge as a small Tare. 1808 Med. Jrnl. XIX. 287 A globule, about the size of a small tare, being thrown on paper moistened. 1876 J. S. Bristowe The. & Pract. Med. (1878) 669 The follicles enlarge to the size of a tare or pea. |
† b. Taken as a type of a very small particle; a whit, a jot, an atom. Obs.
| c 1386 Chaucer Reeve's T. 80 But ther of sette the Millere nat a tare. |
2. A name given to some species of vetch: a. in early times, esp. to those occurring as weeds in corn-fields. (Lyte, 1578, uses it only of these, applying ‘vetch’ or ‘fitch’ to Vicia sativa (sense b); with Gerarde, Ray, and later writers, ‘tare’ and ‘vetch’ become synonymous.)
Still entering into the names of the ‘Hairy or Rough-podded Tare’, Vicia hirsuta (Ervum hirsutum), and ‘Smooth Tare’, V. tetrasperma (E. tetraspermum), cornfield weeds: see also strangle-tare, tine-tare. In quots. 1573–78, applied (after Dodoens) to Lathyrus Aphaca, now a rare ‘colonist’ in English corn-fields, but perhaps then more common, being imported with dirty seed-wheat. Formerly also applied vaguely to other plants of these and allied genera, or to weeds resembling them in their habit.
| c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 88 Orabum þat is wiilde tare. c 1450 Alphita (Anecd. Oxon.) 131 Orobus, gall. uesche, anglice thare uel mousepese. Ibid. 186 Trifolium acutum, wildetare uel tintare. 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. §20 There be diuers maner of wedes, as thistyls, kedlokes, dockes,..dog-fenell, mathes, ter, and dyuers other small wedes. Ibid., Terre is the worste wede,..and groweth mooste in rye, and it groweth lyke fytches, but it is moche smaller, and it wyll growe as hyghe as the corne, and with the weyght therof, it pulleth the corne flatte to the erth, and freteth the eares away. 1573–80 Baret Alv. T 63 Tares which commonlie growe amongst corne, are temperate in heat, aphaca. 1578 Lyte Dodoens iv. xxviii. 485 The Tare groweth in feeldes, & is found growing in this Countrie, in fertil groundes amongst wheat & Rye. 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. i. iii. Furies 166 Cockle, wilde Oats, rough Burs, Corn-cumbring Tares. |
b. Now, in general agricultural use, applied to the cultivated vetch, Vicia sativa, grown (often with oats, etc.) as fodder. In a collective sense, or as name of a crop, used in pl. form (cf. oats, in like use).
| 1482 Cely Papers (Camden) 109 Yowre yonge horsse..wull ete noo mete yett but grasse and grene tarys. 1530 Palsgr. 278/2 Taars a kynd of corn, dragee. [See dredge.] 1552 Huloet, Tares or vetches, a kinde of pulse or grayne, eruila, eruum, orobum, i. 1577 Harrison England ii. vi. (1877) i. 153 Horssecorne, I meane, beanes, peasen, otes, tares, and lintels. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. i. 110 Where Vetches, Pulse, and Tares have stood. 1760 R. Brown Compl. Farmer ii. 87 Tares are of as great advantage to land as other pulses are. 1801 Mason Suppl. to Johnson, Tare, a name frequently given to the common vetch. 1846 J. Baxter Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4) II. 312 Tares will do well on any rich or good soil. 1887 Bowen Virg. Eclogue iii. 100 Lean my bull, though he feeds on the richest tares. |
c. Angling. (See quot. 1971.)
| 1971 Angling Times 10 June 12/1 Tares: a cereal bait used for roach fishing. 1976 Reading Chron. 19 Nov. 26/7 Kennet-style hemp groundbait and caster on the hook failed to get him a bite for the first 90 minutes. Then he switched to floated tares and the roach came thick and fast. |
3. a. pl. Used in the later Wycliffite (or Purvey) version of the N.T. (Matt. xiii. 25), also in some MSS. of the earlier text, and thence in Tindale's and subsequent 16–17th c. versions, to render L. zīzania (Vulg.), Gr. ζιζάνια, as name of an injurious weed among corn, which in the first Wyclif version had been rendered ‘dernel or cokil’, the latter going back in translations and quotations to Old English, the former to Early ME.: see darnel, cockle. Obs. exc. as a biblical use, and as in b.
Evidently Purvey and his co-revisers adopted tares as in their opinion more intelligible than the earlier ‘dernel’ or ‘cokil’. Probably they thought of Vicia hirsuta the Strangle-tare, or other species of wild vetch, as familiar noxious weeds in English cornfields.
| 1388 Wyclif Matt. xiii. 25 Whanne men slepten, his enemy cam, and sewe aboue taris [1382 dernel; gloss or cokil] in the myddil of whete. 1526 Tindale ibid., Whyll men slepte ther cam his foo and sowed tares amonge the wheate. 1594 Hooker Eccl. Pol. iii. i. §9 His Church he compareth unto a field, where tares manifestly known and seen by all men to grow intermingled with good corn. 1611 Bible Matt. xiii. 36 Declare vnto vs the parable of the tares [1388 Wyclif taris, Tindale tares] of the field. a 1674 Clarendon Surv. Leviathan (1676) 307 These are the men who..watched the tares.. and pulled them up. |
b. Hence in allusive and fig. uses.
| a 1711 Ken Direct. Prayers Wks. (1838) 354 The tares of sedition have been industriously sown among you. 1806 Jefferson Writ. (1830) IV. 64 They will not suffer friend or foe to sow tares among us. 1816 Southey Lay Laureate lxvii, The heart of man is rich in all good seeds; Neglected, it is choak'd with tares and noxious weeds. 1818 Byron Ch. Har. iv. cxx, Weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes. 1878 Stubbs Const. Hist. III. xxi. 615 In the new world, as in the old, the tares are mingled with the wheat. |
4. attrib. and Comb., as tare hay, tare seed, tare verdage; tare-grass (dial. tar-grass), some species of wild tare or vetch (‘Vicia hirsuta or perh. V. Cracca’, Britten & Holland); tare-thistle, ? the sow-thistle (Sonchus arvensis), a prickly plant growing as a weed in corn; tare-sown a., sown with tares (sense 3); tare-vetch (-fitch, tarvetch, -fitch), name for Vicia hirsuta and other wild or weedy species of vetch and allied plants.
| 1686 Plot Staffordsh. 204 The wild Vetch, here call'd *Tar-grass. 1694 W. Westmacott Script. Herb. 192 These wild sorts [of Tares] are called by some Tar-grass. |
| 1763 Museum Rust. (ed. 2) I. 225, I had last summer a crop of *tare-hay that was astonishing. |
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens iv. xxviii. 486 The *Tare seede is of a restringent vertue like y⊇ Lentil. |
| 1797 T. Park Sonn. 110 The *tare-sown plains of age we feebly reap. |
| 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp. s.v. Rabbit, The general cure is the keeping them low, and giving them the prickly herb, called *tare-thistle, to eat. |
| 1778 W. H. Marshall Minutes Agric., Digest 44 Horses require very little corn when they are on a *tare-verdage. |
| 1530 Palsgr. 279/1 *Tarefytche a corne, lupyn. 1813 T. Davis Agric. Wilts Gloss., Tare-vetch, withwind, the red and white striped convolvulus, these two plants are the plague of a weak wheat⁓crop in the sand-lands. 1886 Britten & Holland Eng. Plant-n., Tar-fitch.., Vicia hirsuta.—Salop. Blue Tar⁓fitch, Vicia Cracca.—Cheshire. Yellow Tar-fitch, Lathyrus pratensis.—Chesh... Tar Vetch (or Tar-Vatch), Vicia hirsuta.—Dorset. |
▪ II. tare, n.2
(tɛə(r))
[a. F. tare (15th c. in Hatz.-Darm.) waste or deterioration in goods, deficiency, imperfection, also as in Eng., = med.L., It., Pr., Sp., Pg. tara, OSp. atara (Littré), ad. Arab. ṭarḥah that which is thrown away, f. ṭaraḥa to reject.]
a. The weight of the wrapping, receptacle, or conveyance containing goods, which is deducted from the gross in order to ascertain the net weight; hence, a deduction made from the gross weight to allow for this; also (esp. as tare weight), the weight of a motor vehicle or aircraft without its fuel and other equipment.
| 1486 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 13, ij barrelles Gonne⁓powdre conteyning in weight besides the tare d iij lbs. Ibid. 14 A barrell of gonnepoudre weying the tare abated cc lb. 1598 Florio, Tara, the tare, waste or garbish of any marchandise or ware. 1599 Hakluyt Voy. II. 274 Note y{supt} in Ormuz they abate tare of all sorts of commodities. 1617 Sir D. Carleton in Buccleuch MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.) I. 190 The reducing the matter of Tare to the same terms as it was. 1670 Blount Law Dict., Tare and Tret, the first is the weight of Box, Straw, Cloaths, &c. wherein Goods are packed. The other is [etc.]. 1674 S. Jeake Arith. (1696) 639 If 132 lb. abate 12 lb. for Tare, then 1 C. shall be but 120 lb. 1812 J. Smyth Pract. of Customs (1821) 11 The Tares on several sorts of Goods were ascertained by the Farmers of his Majesty's Customs, in the year 1667, a Table whereof was then published by their order. 1882 Mechanical World 4 Mar. 137/1 The method of weighing is to ascertain the weight of load and truck combined, and then deduct the tare of the latter from the total. 1892 Labour Commission Gloss., The tare of the tub is the weight of the empty tub or hutch used in conveying the coals. 1903 Motor. Ann. 64 A steam lorry, which will carry any weight up to seven tons, and has a tare of scarcely three tons. |
| attrib. 1900 Engineering Mag. XIX. 738 Dependent..upon the total useful load it is possible to carry on a vehicle of a given tare weight. 1901 Westm. Gaz. 16 Nov. 2/1 It is difficult to see why in the case of motors there should be a tare-limit of three tons. 1944 C. A. Zweng Aviation Dict. 329/1 In weighing an aircraft..the weight of any incidental equipment needed, and whose weight is included in the final weight, must be subtracted to obtain the correct weight. This is called the tare weight. 1950 Gloss. Aeronaut. Terms (B.S.I.) i. 43 Tare weight, for design purposes: the standard weight of a type of aircraft complete in flying order but without crew, fuel, oil, removable equipment or payload. 1967 Times Rev. Industry May 78/2 Reductions of more than 50 per cent in tare weight..can often be made by using a particular new material. 1977 Mod. Railways Dec. 480/2 All timing loads in the working timetables are now calculated for tare weights in tonnes. |
b. Chem. The weight of a vessel in which a substance is weighed, or of another vessel equal to it, deducted in ascertaining the weight of the substance.
| 1888 Amer. Chem. Jrnl. X. 319 The difference between the weights of the crucibles plus the oxide and those of their tares was then determined. |
c. fig. (Cf. F. tare defect, vice, blemish.)
| 1630 S. Lennard tr. Charron's Wisd. i. xiv. §17 The Spirit hath its maladies, defects, tares or refuse. 1896 V. Lee in Contemp. Rev. June 822 Is there not in this case a tare—a diminution of aesthetic value to our detriment? |
d. tare and tret: the two ordinary deductions in calculating the net weight of goods to be sold by retail: see tret; also, the rule in arithmetic by which these are calculated.
| 1670 [see above]. 1692 Coles, Tare and tret, (allowance for) the weight of box, bag, &c. and waste on emptying, &c. 1709 Steele Tatler No. 46 ¶1 He gave diurnal Audiences concerning Commerce, Politicks, Tare and Tret, Usury. 1844 Dickens Mart. Chuz. xix, We learnt Tare and Tret together, at school. |
| fig. c 1838 De Quincey Pope Wks. 1863 XV. 121 The allowance for tare and tret as a discount in favour of Pope. |
e. Comb. † tare-master = tarer. Obs.
| 1625 Laws Stannaries xi. (1808) 21 The poiser, the tare⁓master and their deputies, ought to be sworn in the stannary-court. |
▪ III. tare, v.
(tɛə(r))
[f. tare n.2]
trans. To ascertain, allow for, or indicate the tare of.
| 1812 J. Smyth Pract. of Customs (1821) 168 Two Jars tared three pounds each. Ibid. 247 It is the practice at the West India Docks to make a memorandum of the packages which are tared, on the back of the blue book. 1880 J. Lomas Alkali Trade 246 It is usual not to tare the casks at all, but to invoice the gross weight as soda. 1890 Pall Mall G. 29 Sept. 8/2 The Custom House authorities have given notice that on and after October 1 their officers will have instructions to weigh and tare packages of tea to the half-pound instead of to the pound, as heretofore. |
Hence tared ppl. a., of which the tare or weight when empty has been ascertained.
| 1854 J. Scoffern in Orr's Circ. Sc., Chem. 333 Being collected on a tared filter, its weight may be estimated. 18.. U.S. Dispensatory 575 (Cent. Dict.) The neck of a bottle..marked for the quantity of liquid to be percolated,..or of a tared bottle, if the percolate is to be weighed. |
▪ IV. tare
obs., arch., and dial. f. and pa. tense of tear v.1; var. tear n. fine flax; var. tahr, Himalayan goat; obs. f. there: see T 8.
▪ V. tare
(in phr. tare and ages, wounds): see tear n.2 3 d.