tar

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A dark, oily, viscous material, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons, produced by the destructive distillation of organic substances such as wood, coal, or peat.
2. n. Coal tar.
3. n. A solid residue of tobacco smoke containing byproducts of combustion.
4. v. To coat with or as if with tar.
5. idiom. tar and feather To punish (a person) by covering with tar and feathers.
6. idiom. tar and feather To criticize severely and devastatingly; excoriate.
7. idiom. tarred with the same brush Having the same faults or bad qualities.
8. n. Informal A sailor.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A small silver coin formerly current on the Malabar coast, especially at Tellicherri and Calicut. Sixteen tars of Calicut equal one fanam; one tar of Tellicherri is equivalent to four reas, and one hundred tars equal one rupee.
2. n. A thick dark-colored viscid product obtained by the destructive distillation of organic substances and bituminous minerals, as wood, coal, peat, shale, etc. Wood-tar, such as the Archangel, Stockholm, and American tars of commerce, is generally prepared by a very rude process. A conical cavity is dug in the side of a bank or a steep hill, and a cast-iron pan is placed at the bottom, from which leads a spout into a barrel for collecting the tar. Billets of wood (such as pine or fir) are thrown into this cavity, and, being covered with turf, are slowly burned without flame. The wood chiefly used in Europe is that of the Scotch pine, Pinus sylvestris, and the Siberian larch, Larix Sibirica; in the United States, that of the long-leaved pine, Pinus palustris. Most of the tar produced in the United States is made in North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. In England wood-tar is chiefly obtained as a by-product in the destructive distillation of wood for the manufacture of wood-vinegar (pyroligneous acid) and wood-spirit (methyl alcohol). It has an acid reaction, and contains various liquid matters, of which the principal are methyl-acetate, acetone, hydrocarbons of the benzene series, and a number of oxidized compounds, as carbolic acid. Paraffin, anthracene, naphthalene, chrys-ene, etc., are found among its solid products. It possesses valuable antiseptic properties, owing to the creosote it contains, and is used extensively for coating and preserving timber and iron in exposed situations, and for impregnating ships' ropes and cordage. Coal-tar is extensively obtained in the process of gas-manufacture. It is a very valuable substance, the compounds obtained from it forming the basis of many chemical manufactures. See coal-tar.
3. To smear with tar; figuratively, to cover as with tar.
4. To incite; provoke; hound.
5. n. A sailor: so called from his tarred clothes, hands, etc. Also Jack Tar.

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable A black, oily, sticky, viscous substance, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons derived from organic materials such as wood, peat, or coal.
2. n. Coal tar.
3. n. uncountable A solid residual byproduct of tobacco smoke.
4. n. slang, dated A sailor, because of their tarpaulin clothes. Also Jack Tar.
5. n. black tar, a form of heroin
6. v. transitive To coat with tar.
7. n. computing A program for archiving files, common on Unix.
8. n. computing A file produced by such a program.
9. v. computing To create a tar archive.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. colloq. A sailor; a seaman.
2. n. A thick, black, viscous liquid obtained by the distillation of wood, coal, etc., and having a varied composition according to the temperature and material employed in obtaining it.
3. v. To smear with tar, or as with tar

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a man who serves as a sailor
2. v. coat with tar
3. n. any of various dark heavy viscid substances obtained as a residue