Tart

How to spell tart

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tart

What does tart mean?

1. adjectiveHaving a sharp, sour, or acidic flavour.
2. nounAn open pastry case filled with fruit, custard, or another sweet or savoury filling.
3. adjectiveSharp or cutting in tone, especially in speech.

Tart in a sentence

• adjective

  The rhubarb was so tart that it made her wince.

• noun

  She baked a lemon tart for the dinner party.

• adjective

  His tart response ended the meeting abruptly.

• adjective

  A squeeze of lime gives the dressing a tart edge.

• noun

  The bakery sells a treacle tart every Friday.

• adjective

  She gave a tart reply when questioned about the delay.

Where does tart come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English teart, which meant sharp, severe, or painful, the kind of bite you would feel from a lash or a harsh rebuke rather than from food. Over the centuries that sense of sharpness narrowed toward the tongue, so that by the sixteenth century tart was being used for a keen, sour taste like that of an unripe apple or a squeeze of lemon. The pastry sense is unrelated in origin: that noun came from the Old French tarte, a flat open pie filled with fruit or custard, recorded in English from the late fourteenth century. The slang use for a woman, often derogatory, appeared in the nineteenth century, probably as a shortening of the affectionate sweetheart, jam tart, before it soured into an insult. The figurative adjective meaning cutting or curt, as in a tart reply, simply carries the old taste metaphor back to speech, which is rather fitting given the word began life describing something painful.

How the word is built

• tart (single root, no affixes; from Old English teart meaning sharp or severe)