Meanings
- The second-largest city in Estonia.
Even though teacher training has been completely overhauled at Tartu University to place more emphasis on how to teach students critical thinking and communication and less on content knowledge, officials there say it’s taking a while to trickle down into the classroom.
2016 June 23, Sarah Butrymowicz, “Estonia Is Becoming the New Finland”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 29 Jun 2016Synonyms: Dorpat
Synonyms & antonyms
proper nounThe second-largest city in Estonia.
Origin
- Proto-Finnic*tarvas
- Estoniantarvas
- EstonianTart
- EnglishTartu
Borrowed from Estonian Tartu, from earlier Tarbatu, ultimately from tarvas (“aurochs”), qv.
More words from Estonian
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Catalan Tartu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
Chinese Mandarin 塔爾圖 /塔尔图
- 塔爾圖 /塔尔图 (Tǎ'ěrtú)second-largest city in Estonia
Danish Tartu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
Dutch Tartu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
Estonian Tartu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
Finnish Tartto
- Tarttosecond-largest city in Estonia
French Tartu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
German Tartu, Dorpat
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
- Dorpatsecond-largest city in Estonia
- Dörptsecond-largest city in Estonia
Hebrew טרטו
- טרטוsecond-largest city in Estonia
Hungarian Tartu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
Italian Tartu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
Japanese タルトゥ
- タルトゥ (Tarutu)second-largest city in Estonia
Latin Tarbatum
- Tarbatumsecond-largest city in Estonia
Latvian Tērbata, Mētraine
- Tērbatasecond-largest city in Estonia
- Mētrainesecond-largest city in Estonia
Lithuanian Tartu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
Norwegian Bokmål Tartu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
Polish Tartu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
Portuguese Tartu, Tártu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
- Tártusecond-largest city in Estonia
Russian Та́рту, Ю́рьев
- Та́рту (Tártu)second-largest city in Estonia
- Ю́рьев (Júrʹjev)second-largest city in Estonia
- Дерпт (Derpt)second-largest city in Estonia
- До́рпат (Dórpat)second-largest city in Estonia
South Estonian Tarto
- Tartosecond-largest city in Estonia
Spanish Tartu
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
Swedish Tartu, Dorpat
- Tartusecond-largest city in Estonia
- Dorpatsecond-largest city in Estonia
Yiddish דערפּט, דערפּעט
- דערפּט (derpt)second-largest city in Estonia
- דערפּעט (derpet)second-largest city in Estonia
- דאָרפּאַט (dorpat)second-largest city in Estonia
- טאַרטו (tartu)second-largest city in Estonia
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
Tartu. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tartu
“Tartu.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tartu. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Tartu,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tartu.
Source: Tartu on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.