tattoo

Pluraltattoos

Formstattoos, tattooing, tattooed

1. 1
   ink picturenouncountable

   An image made on part of the body, usually on the skin with ink and a needle.

   He got a tattoo of his daughter's name on his forearm.

   Her tattoos had faded after years of working outdoors.

   Note

   The skin tattoo came into English from a Polynesian language, as in Samoan tatau, “tattoo; to tap, to strike”, by way of earlier spellings such as tattaow and tattow. It is a different word from the evening drum call and the parade-ground display, which only look the same. The plural is tattoos; tattooes, still used in W. S. Caine's Picturesque India (1898), is now uncommon.

2. 2
   mark with inkverbtransitive

   To mark someone or something with a tattoo.

   Many breeders tattoo their dogs' ears so that lost pets can be identified.

   She tattooed her own ankle with a kit she bought online.

3. 3
   art formnoununcountable

   The practice of decorating part of the body, usually the skin, by using a sharp instrument, typically an electrically driven needle, to put colored pigment beneath the surface.

   The museum's new exhibit traces the history of tattoo from ancient mummies to modern studios.

   She was drawn to tattoo as an art form long before she got any ink herself.

4. 4
   military shownouncountable or uncountable

   A military display or pageant performed for an audience.

   The regiment's pipers and drummers opened the evening tattoo on the parade ground.

   Each August the city hosts a tattoo with massed bands from a dozen countries.

   Similarpageant

   Note

   The display shares its Dutch name with the evening call to quarters, so a tattoo on a city's calendar promises drums, pipes and massed bands rather than ink. Used countably it names a single event, the regiment's evening tattoo; used without an article it names the kind of spectacle.

5. 5
   bedtime callnouncountable or uncountable

   A drum or bugle signal ordering soldiers to return to their quarters, sounded shortly before lights-out.

   The bugler sounded tattoo, and the men filed back to their barracks.

   By the time tattoo was beaten, the camp had already gone quiet.

   Note

   The evening call takes its name from Dutch taptoe, from tap, the faucet on a cask, and toe, “shut”: in effect the order to close the taps for the night. On a military post it is sounded five minutes before taps, the call for lights-out. Like other bugle calls it usually goes without an article, so the bugler sounds tattoo and the drummers beat tattoo.

6. 6
   tap a beatverbtransitive or intransitive

   To tap rhythmically on something, as if drumming.

   Woodpeckers tattoo on the dead oak every morning at sunrise.

   Stuck in traffic, he tattooed a restless rhythm on the steering wheel.

   Similardrum, tap, rap, beat

   Note

   The drumming verb belongs with the call to quarters, not with the skin tattoo, though Samoan tatau, behind the skin word, also meant “to tap, to strike”, a coincidence that makes the two easy to confuse. Thackeray's Vanity Fair has an anxious man watching the clock who “tattooed at the table”: with at or on, the verb describes restless fingers.

7. 7
   hit hard (baseball)verbtransitive

   To hit the ball hard, as if to leave a tattoo on it.

   Ramirez tattooed a fastball off the center-field wall.

   He can tattoo a high fastball whenever a pitcher leaves one over the plate.

   Similarcrush, smash, hammer

   Note

   Play-by-play commentary is where this verb lives. It takes the pitch as its object, or simply one, as in tattoos one into the gap in left, and the sentence usually goes on to say where the ball went: into the gap, off the wall. The word praises the force of the swing rather than the outcome, so a ball can be tattooed straight at a fielder.

8. 8
   Indian ponynouncountable

   A pony of a particular breed from India.

   The officer rode a sturdy little tattoo along the hill road.

   The boy led the tattoo down to the river to drink.

   Note

   Hindi gave English this third, unrelated tattoo: the pony's name comes from ṭaṭṭū, and it only happens to share a spelling with the tattoo on skin and the military pageant. In practice the three seldom collide, since a tattoo that is ridden, saddled or led down to the river to drink can only be the horse.

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