tartan

noun

1. (uncountable)Woven woollen fabric with a distinctive pattern of coloured stripes intersecting at right angles originally associated with Scottish Highlanders, now with different clans (though this only dates from the late 18th century) and some Scottish families and institutions having their own patterns; (countable) a particular type of such fabric.

   “Her hands trembled […] as she adjusted the scarlet tartan screen or muffler made of plaid, which the Scottish women wore, much in the fashion of the black silk veils still a part of female dress in the Netherlands.”

   “The country which lay just above this pass was now the theatre of a war such as the Highlands had not often witnessed. Men wearing the same tartan, and attached to the same lord, were arrayed against each other.”

2. (countable)Woven woollen fabric with a distinctive pattern of coloured stripes intersecting at right angles originally associated with Scottish Highlanders, now with different clans (though this only dates from the late 18th century) and some Scottish families and institutions having their own patterns; (countable) a particular type of such fabric.
3. (uncountable)Woven woollen fabric with a distinctive pattern of coloured stripes intersecting at right angles originally associated with Scottish Highlanders, now with different clans (though this only dates from the late 18th century) and some Scottish families and institutions having their own patterns; (countable) a particular type of such fabric.

   “Dovvn flovv'd her robe, a tartan ſheen, / Till half a leg vvas ſcrimply ſeen; […]”

4. (countable, figuratively)An individual who wears tartan (etymology 1, noun sense 1.2); specifically, a Scottish Highlander, or a Scottish person (chiefly a Scotsman) in general.
5. (countable, figuratively)A type of fly used in fly fishing, often to catch salmon.

   “What is called the tartan-fly kills well in the Highlands at the clearing of the water. The tail must be yellow, mixed with a little red; and tipt with silver-thread; the body must be of five or six different colours, yellow, blue, orange, green, red, and black; the colours must join; […]”

6. (UK, countable, figuratively)A young person who is a member of a Protestant gang in Northern Ireland.

   “The Shankill was a tough district all right. It was really hard-line Protestant and most of the kids were in tough Prod gangs, like the Tartans.”

7. (figuratively, uncountable)Preceded by the: a group of people customarily wearing tartan; Scottish Highlanders or Scottish people collectively; also, the soldiers of a Scottish Highland regiment collectively.

   “Sir Colin [Campbell] called to Colonel [John Frederick] Ewart, 'Ewart, bring on the tartan!'; his bugler sounded the advance, and the seven companies of the Ninety-Third [(Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot] dashed from behind the bank.”

8. (attributive, uncountable)Originally a trade name in the form Tartan: a synthetic resin used for surfacing ramps, running tracks, etc.

   “Bob Hayes ran a world record 9.1 for 100 y[ards] on a Tartan-surface track in St. Louis in 1963, and Tartan tracks (manufactured by 3M) were installed for the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1967, and for the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968.”

   “Running tracks are also known as tartan tracks. One lap of a tartan track is usually 400 metres, so it is easy to keep track of your running performance.”

9. (Scotland, abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, uncountable)Ellipsis of tartan-purry (“a porridge made from cabbage mixed with oatmeal”).

   “But of oatmeal we have tartan—tartan purry it was sometimes called, and probably therefore was a partially French invention—a pudding made chiefly of chopped kale and oatmeal; […]”

10. (transitive)A type of one-masted vessel with a lateen sail and a foresail, used in the Mediterranean.

    “[W]e met Captain VVright, vvho came thither the day before; and had taken a Spaniſh Tartan, vvherein vvere 30 men, all vvell armed: […] VVe that came over Land out of the South Seas being vveary of living among the French, deſired Captain VVright to fit up his Prize the Tartan, and make a Man of VVar of her for us, […]”

    “Nearly the whole of his time, however, he informed Captain Servadac, had been spent upon the sea, his real business being that of a merchant trading at all the ports of the Mediterranean. A tartan, a small vessel of two hundred tons burden, conveyed his entire stock of merchandise, and, to say the truth, was a sort of floating emporium, conveying nearly every possible article of commerce, from a lucifer match to the radiant fabrics of Frankfort and Epinal.”

    “When we were watching Massena, off Genoa, we got a matter of seventy schooners, brigs, and tartans, with wine, food, and powder.”

adj

1. Made of tartan (noun etymology 1, noun sense 1), or having a distinctive pattern of coloured stripes intersecting at right angles like a that of a tartan.

   “Her tartan petticoat ſhe'll kilt, / An' durk an' piſtol at her belt, / She'll tak the ſtreets, / An' rin her vvhittle to the hilt, / I' th' firſt ſhe meets!”

   “[M]y pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets' daughters should.”

   “In the second row of the cavalcade were Francie, Fanny's god-daughter, now thirteen years old and already elegant in long frilled pantalettes, tartan skirts, and a leghorn hat with streamers, […]”

2. (figuratively, humorous, sometimes)Of or relating to Scotland, its culture, or people; Scottish.

verb

1. (transitive)To clothe (someone) in tartan (noun etymology 1, noun sense 1.2).

   “That 42d tartan is Campbell tartan rests upon the fact that the Black Watch was officered by a large majority of Campbells at first. When I was first tartaned, more than fifty years ago, I was taken by John Campbell, piper, to the shop of his brother William, in Glasgow, to be tailored.”

   “The Celtic Society of Edinburgh was founded in 1820, its members dining in kilts. In 1820–22, the novelist Walter Scott worked away at the tartaning of Scotland in the run-up to a landmark visit by George IV, when even the fat king would be wearing full Scottish tartan.”

   “Grandpa, tartaned to the max, larger than life, meekly trotted back to the car to let Grandma's familiar [a cat] out.”

   “When they entered the kitchen, Craig, who loved plaids and was wearing a plaid shirt, was amazed to find his host tartaned out in a plaid pattern that was repeated from head to foot: […]”

2. (transitive)To apply a tartan pattern to (something).

   “The unholy beast in the box was the most splendid and graceful specimen of the monitor lizard I have ever seen. […] Smooth, though scaly, and inky black, tartaned all over with transverse rows of bright yellow spots, with eyes that shone like wild-fire, and teeth like quartz, with his forked tongue continually flashing out from his bright-red mouth, he had a wild, weird loveliness that was most uncanny.”

   “[W]hy shouldn't the waitresses in the dining room, each one of them already attired in a distinctive clan tartan, be required to carry a small card identifying the tartan for the convenience of diners who might want to purchase tartaned gifts after their meal?”

3. (figuratively, transitive)To make (something) Scottish, or more Scottish; to tartanize.

   “The premier [Angus Lewis Macdonald] was photographed repeatedly at the annual Gaelic Mod, and sitting at a loom in a display of Highland handicrafts in Scotland itself. The premier also focused his attention on the tartaning of the provincially owned Keltic Lodge.”

   “Hence, Edinburgh's working class has conventionally been doubly excluded and marginalised. […] [S]econdly, within a nationalist paradigm, by the ‘tartaning up’ of that same city centre – the concomitant tourist culture of Scotland as a national heritage site. The Edinburgh of romantic or puritanical nationalism myth has no imaginative or social space for an urban working class.”

name

1. (historical)The commander-in-chief of ancient Assyria.

   “And the king of Aſſyria ſent Tartan and Rabſaris, and Rabſhakeh, from Lachiſh to king Hezekiah, with a great hoſte againſt Jeruſalem: […]”

   “In the yeere that Tartan came vnto Aſhdod (when Sargon the king of Aſſyria ſent him) and fought against Aſhdod, and tooke it: […]”