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tart

Pronunciation: /tɑɹt/

The English word “tart” has 10 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Sharp to the taste; acid; sour.
  2. High or too high in acidity.
  3. Sharp; keen; severe.

noun

  1. A type of small open pie, or piece of pastry, now typically containing jelly (US) / jam (UK) or conserve, or sometimes other fillings (chocolate, custard, egg, butter, historically even meat or other savory fillings).
  2. A melt (block of wax for use in a tart burner).
  3. A prostitute.
  4. Any woman with loose sexual morals.

verb

  1. To practice prostitution.
  2. To practice promiscuous sex.
  3. To dress garishly, ostentatiously, whorishly, or sluttily.

Etymology

From Middle English tart, from Old English teart (“sharp, rough, severe”), from Proto-West Germanic *tart, from Proto-Germanic *tartaz (“rough, sharp, tearing”), from Proto-Germanic *teraną (“to tear”), from Proto-Indo-European *der- (“to flay, split, cleave”). Related to Scots tairt (“tart; tartness”), Dutch tarten (“to defy, challenge, mock”), German trotzen (“to defy, brave, mock”), perhaps…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.