TALLOW

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does tallow mean? 

• TALLOW (noun)
  The noun TALLOW has 1 sense:

1. obtained from suet and used in making soap, candles and lubricants

  Familiarity information: TALLOW used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TALLOW (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Obtained from suet and used in making soap, candles and lubricants

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("tallow" is a kind of...):

animal oil (any oil obtained from animal substances)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tallow"):

beef tallow (tallow obtained from a bovine animal)

dubbin (tallow mixed with oil; used to make leather soft and waterproof)

mutton tallow (tallow from the body of a mature sheep)

 Context examples 

He’s as quick and as long in the reach as you are, and he’ll train himself to the last half-ounce of tallow.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Grey Beaver was breaking the lump of tallow in half!

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I had the tallow of three hundred cows, for greasing my boat, and other uses.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

But each time it was the bulging face of the saloon-keeper that peered in at him by the sickly light of a tallow candle.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

There were the two watchmen, sure enough: red-cap on his back, as stiff as a handspike, with his arms stretched out like those of a crucifix and his teeth showing through his open lips; Israel Hands propped against the bulwarks, his chin on his chest, his hands lying open before him on the deck, his face as white, under its tan, as a tallow candle.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I see no less than five, I think that there can be little doubt that the individual must be brought into frequent contact with burning tallow—walks upstairs at night probably with his hat in one hand and a guttering candle in the other.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There was a box of vestas, two inches of tallow candle, an A.D.P. briar-root pipe, a pouch of seal-skin with half an ounce of long-cut Cavendish, a silver watch with a gold chain, five sovereigns in gold, an aluminium pencil-case, a few papers, and an ivory-handled knife with a very delicate, inflexible blade marked Weiss & Co., London.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Grey Beaver saw him, and stopped munching the tallow.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I tried my canoe in a large pond, near my master’s house, and then corrected in it what was amiss; stopping all the chinks with Yahoos’ tallow, till I found it staunch, and able to bear me and my freight; and, when it was as complete as I could possibly make it, I had it drawn on a carriage very gently by Yahoos to the sea-side, under the conduct of the sorrel nag and another servant.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Very gently and somewhat suspiciously, he first smelled the tallow and then proceeded to eat it.

(White Fang, by Jack London)