Tar

How to spell tar

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tar

What does tar mean?

1. nounA thick, sticky, dark substance obtained from coal, wood, or petroleum and used for surfacing roads and waterproofing.
2. verbTo coat or cover something with tar.

Tar in a sentence

• noun

  The road crew poured hot tar over the cracked surface.

• verb

  The council plans to tar and resurface the lane next month.

• noun

  A layer of tar kept the roof watertight through the winter.

• verb

  Workers had to tar the seams of the old wooden boat.

Where does tar come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Tar comes from the Old English teru or teoru, meaning the thick, dark, sticky substance that oozes from pine and other trees. It belongs to a wide Germanic family, with relatives such as the Dutch teer and the Old Norse tjara, and scholars trace these back to a root connected with the word for tree or oak, since the earliest tar was distilled from resinous wood. Over the centuries the meaning broadened from natural pine pitch to the black residue produced when coal or wood is burned, and later to the bituminous material spread on roads. The word stayed admirably short and simple, keeping its three-letter form across more than a thousand years. A sailor was once nicknamed a 'tar' or 'Jack Tar' because seamen waterproofed their clothing and rigging with the stuff.

How the word is built

• tar (single root, from Old English teru: resin, pitch)