Search the Dictionary

Bad small beer; also, the refuse or dregs of liquor. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.] The taplash of strong ale and wine. Taylor (1630).

The strong double leathers by which the two parts of a flail are united. Halliwell.

A small carnivorous marsupial (Phascogale penicillata) having long, soft fur, and a very long tail with a tuft of long hairs at the end; -- called also brush-tailed phascogale.

An obstruction, or indigestible mass, found in the intestine of bears and other animals during hibernation.

The lesser spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopus minor); -- called also tapperer, tabberer, little wood pie, barred woodpecker, wood tapper, hickwall, and pump borer. [Prov. Eng.]

A female tapster. [Obs.] Chaucer.

A lever or projection moved by some other piece, as a cam, or intended to tap or touch something else, with a view to produce change or regulate motion. G. Francis. Tappet motion, a valve motion worked by tappets from a reciprocating part, without an eccentric or cam, -- used in steam pumps, etc.

A rod carrying a tappet or tappets, as one for closing the valves in a Cornish pumping engine.

See Tapish.

A hen having a tuft of feathers on her head. [Scot.] Jamieson.

A piece of wood or sheet metal fitted into a ditch to dam up the water so as to overflow a field. [U. S.]

A room where liquors are kept on tap; a barroom. The ambassador was put one night into a miserable taproom, full of soldiers smoking. Macaulay.

The root of a plant which penetrates the earth directly downward to a considerable depth without dividing.

One whose business is to tap or draw ale or other liquor.

A Central American name for the ivory nut.

A thick, black, viscous liquid obtained by the distillation of wood, coal, etc., and having a varied composition according to the temperature and material employed in obtaining it. Coal tar. See in the Vocabulary. -- Mineral tar (Min.), a kind of soft native bitumen. -- Tar board, a strong quality of millboard made f…

A Celtic divinity, regarded as the evil principle, but confounded by the Romans with Jupiter.

ringy poles which run from the fore to the hind axletree. When snow falls, the wheels are taken off, and the body is mounted on a sledge.

A rapid and delirious sort of Neapolitan dance in 6-8 time, which moves in whirling triplets; -- so called from a popular notion of its being a remedy against the poisonous bite of the tarantula. Some derive its name from Taranto in Apulia.

and an uncontrollable desire to dance. It was supposed to be produced by the bite of the tarantula, and considered to be incapable of cure except by protraced dancing to appropriate music. [Written also tarentism.]