tattoo

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Redneck answers "Not at all, After 12 months this tattoo is all mine"

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Definitions (23)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (10)

  1. noun A signal sounded on a drum or bugle to summon soldiers or sailors to their quarters at night.
  2. noun A display of military exercises offered as evening entertainment.
  3. noun A continuous, even drumming or rapping.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (6)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (4)

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Examples (41)

  • Getting a tattoo is an intensely personal decision, and the type of tattoo you want to get, even more so! —  Find Free Articles - ArticlesBase
  • You also have to take in consideration how big the tattoo is and how many colors are going to be used. —  Find Free Articles - ArticlesBase
  • I understand why, but his tattoo is a symbol of what the show is about, and it was sad to see it go. —  Prison Break Buff
  • While we lingered, inhaling that oddly satisfying sterile scent, I knew the tattoo was already done - I was merely going through the motions and time to arrive at a place I had reached long before. —  Kottu
  • Not many know that the tattoo is a permanent one, which he had done from a guy in Mumbai's Colaba area many years back when tattoo parlours weren't around. —  IndiaGlitz.com - News
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This word has been looked up 172 times.

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Etymologies (7)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Alteration of Dutch taptoe, tap-shut (closing time for taverns), tattoo : tap, spigot, tap (from Middle Dutch tappe) + toe, shut (from Middle Dutch; see de- in Indo-European roots).
  2. Of Polynesian origin.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (5)

  1. Hind, taitū.
  2. Formerly taptoo, taptow (= Swedish tapto = Russian tapta), from Dutch taptoe, the tattoo (“taptoe, tap-tow; de taptoe slaan, to beat the tap-tow”—Sewel, ed. 1766), literally a signal to put the ‘tap to’—that is, to close the taps of the public houses; from tap, a tap, + toe, to, in the sense ‘shut, close’: see tap, and to, adv. Cf. Low German tappenslag, German zapfenstreich, Danish tappenstreg, tattoo, literally ‘tap-blow, tap-stroke.’
  3. from tattoo, n.
  4. Also tatoo; = French tatouer, from Tahitian tatu, tattooing, also adjective, tattooed.
  5. from tattoo, v.
 

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/tæˈtu/
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