TARTAR

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Tartar mean? 

• TARTAR (noun)
  The noun TARTAR has 4 senses:

1. a salt used especially in baking powder

2. a fiercely vigilant and unpleasant woman

3. a member of the Mongolian people of central Asia who invaded Russia in the 13th century

4. an incrustation that forms on the teeth and gums

  Familiarity information: TARTAR used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TARTAR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A salt used especially in baking powder

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Synonyms:

cream of tartar; potassium bitartrate; potassium hydrogen tartrate; tartar

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

salt (a compound formed by replacing hydrogen in an acid by a metal (or a radical that acts like a metal))

Derivation:

tartaric (relating to or derived from or resembling tartar)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A fiercely vigilant and unpleasant woman

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

dragon; tartar

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

disagreeable woman; unpleasant woman (a woman who is an unpleasant person)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A member of the Mongolian people of central Asia who invaded Russia in the 13th century

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Mongol Tatar; Tartar; Tatar

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

Mongol; Mongolian (a member of the nomadic peoples of Mongolia)

Sense 4

Meaning:

An incrustation that forms on the teeth and gums

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

calculus; tartar; tophus

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

crust; encrustation; incrustation (a hard outer layer that covers something)

 Context examples 

“A Tartar,” said the man with the wooden leg.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

There were Slavonian hunters, fair-skinned and mighty-muscled; short, squat Finns, with flat noses and round faces; Siberian half-breeds, whose noses were more like eagle-beaks; and lean, slant-eyed men, who bore in their veins the Mongol and Tartar blood as well as the blood of the Slav.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

“I'm a Tartar.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I heard that Mr. Creakle had not preferred his claim to being a Tartar without reason; that he was the sternest and most severe of masters; that he laid about him, right and left, every day of his life, charging in among the boys like a trooper, and slashing away, unmercifully.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)