Chapter Tarrinzeau Field to Tear of T by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Tarrinzeau Field to Tear

Tarrinzeau Field The bowling-green of Southwark. So called because it belonged to the Barons Hastings, who were Barons Tarrinzeau and Mauchline.

Tartan Plaid A plaid is a long shawl or scarf- some twelve yards of narrow cloth wrapped round the waist, or over the chest and one shoulder, and reaching to the knees. It may be chequered or not, but the English use of the word in such a compound a Scotch-plaids, meaning chequered cloth, is a blunder for Scotch tartans. The tartan is the chequered pattern, every clan having its own tartan. A tartanplaid is a Scotch scarf of a tartan or checked pattern.

Tartar the deposit of wine, means “infernal stuff,” being derived from the word Tartaros (q.v.). Paracelsus says, “It is so called because it produces oil, water, tincture, and salt, which burn the patient as the fires of Tartarus burn.”

Tartaros (Greek), Tartarus (Latin). That part of the infernal regions where the wicked are punished. (Classic mythology.)
    The word “Hell” occurs seventeen times in the English version of the New Testament. In seven of these the original Greek is “Gehenna,” in nine “Hades,” and in one instance it is “Tartaros” (2 Peter ii. 4) It is a very great pity that the three words are translated alike, especially as Gehenna and Hades are not synonymous, nor should either be confounded with Tartarus. The Anglo-Saxon verb hél- an means to cover, hence hell = the grave or Hades.

Tartuffe (2 syl.). The principal character of Moliére's comedy so called. The original was the Abbé de Roquette, a parasite of the Prince de Condé. It is said that the name is from the Italian tartuffoli (truffles), and was suggested to Moliére on seeing the sudden animation which lighted up the faces of certain monks when they heard that a seller of truffles awaited their orders. Bickerstaff's play, The Hypocrite, is an English version of Tartuffe.

Tassel-Gentle The tiercel is the male of the goshawk. So called because it is a tierce or third less than the female. This is true of all birds of prey. The tiercel-gentle was the class of hawk appropriate to princes. (See Hawk. )

“O for a falconer's voice
To lure this tassel-gentle back again”
Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet, ii 2.

Tasselled Gentleman A fop, a man dressed in fine clothes. A corruption of Tercel-gentle by a double blunder: (1) Tercel, erroneously supposed to be tassel, and to refer to the tags and tassels worn by men on their dress; and (2) gentle corrupted into gentlemen, according to the Irish exposition of the verse, “The gentle shall inherit the earth.”

Tatianists The disciples of Tatian, who, after the death of Justin Martyr, “formed a new scheme of religion; for he advanced the notion of certain invisible aeons, branded marriage with the name of fornication, and denied the salvation of Adam.” (Irenaeus. Adv. Hereses (ed. Grabe), pp. 105, 106, 262.)
    Two Tatians are almost always confounded as one person in Church history, although there was at least a century between them. The older Tatian was a Platonic philosopher, born in Syria, and converted to Christianity by Justin the Martyr. He was the author of a Discourse to the Greeks, became a Gnostic, and founded the sect of the Tatianists. The other Tatian was a native of Mesopotamia, lived in the fourth century, and wrote in very bad Greek a book called Diatessaron, supposed to be based on four Gospels, but what four is quite conjectural.

Tatterdemalion A ragamuffin.

Tattoo A beat on the drum at night to recall the soldiers to their barracks. It sounded at nine in summer and eight in winter. (French, tapoter or tapotez tous.)
   The devil's tattoo. Drumming with one's finger on the furniture, or with one's toe on the ground- a monotonous sound, which gives the listener the “blue devils.”