tat

plural tats

1. UKuncountableCheap and vulgar tastelessness; sleaze.
2. UKuncountableCheap, tasteless, useless goods; trinkets.

   tourist tat

   1 more example

   And it agreed with the editorial cartoon which featured a newsman doing a live report in front of a smouldering building and saying, "And it seems millions of pounds of meaningless tat has been lost to the nation for ever."

   2004 May 28, Thomas Sutcliffe, “Why Britart is a burning issue”, in The Independent

3. IndiacountableGunny cloth made from the fibre of the Corchorus olitorius (jute).

present singular third person tats · participle present tatting · participle past tatted · past tatted

1. intransitivetransitiveTo make (something by) tatting.

plural tats

1. abbreviationclippingClipping of tatting.

   She's so swishy in her satin and tat / In her frock coat and bipperty-bopperty hat

   1971, David Bowie, “Queen Bitch”, in Hunky Dory

plural tats · alternative tattoo · alternative tatt

1. IndiaarchaicA pony.

   And so each morning before daybreak I am up, and having dispatched my luggage on the backs of coolies after much noise and bustle, without which no natives can work, I mount my tat as the sun begins to touch the higher hills, and start on my morning ride of twelve miles.

   1879, Val Cameron Prinsep, Glimpses of Imperial India, page 206

plural tats

1. slangA tattoo.

   Now give me my cable, fast food, four-by's, tats, right away I want it now.

   1998 November 17, “Americana” (track 22), in Supercharged: Worldwide in '25, performed by The Offspring

   2 more examples

   I'm diplomatic playing pen and pad. Rat-a-tat, you're a scaredy-catcause I have a tat put you up like that. You can't stand that cause you've got to scat.

   1999 September 14, “I Can't Wait” (track 2), in Nigga Please, performed by Ol' Dirty Bastard

   Me and my thugs clock G's, sippin' naughty thangs. Real as these tats on my body, and it's Killuminati.

   1999 December 21, “Killuminati” (track 11), in Still I Rise, performed by Tupac and Outlawz

present singular third person tats · participle present tatting · participle past tatted · past tatted

1. slangtransitiveTo apply a tattoo.

   2016 May 5, Fifth Harmony, “Write on Me”, 7/27, Epic Records, Sysco Music Write on me / Love the way you tat me up

plural tats

1. UKalternativearchaicslanggamblingAlternative form of tatt (“a die, especially one that is loaded”).

plural tats

1. alternativeAlternative form of tatty (“kind of woven mat or screen”).

plural tats

1. Some small thing, especially that which is exchanged tit for tat.

   Not tit-for-tat, but more like ten tits for every tat.

   2006 08, Michael Riggs, Edicts of Ares: 13 Absolute Rules of Warfare, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 112

   5 more examples

   The article seems an attempt at tit-for-tat; but there is too little tat, even in Bedouins, to provoke such a maze of tit as is found in “'Bedouins' and Nomads.”

   1920, The Creighton Chronicle, page 294

   [...] insecurity, anger engender the excessive retaliation of two tits for a tat that leads not to damping-down but to [escalation].

   1999 May 18, D. Reisman, Conserative Capitalism: The Social Economy, Springer, →ISBN, page 122

   At the U.S. planning sessions, it was not uncommon to hear someone say, "Just remember, when you're negotiating tit-for-tat, it's better to concede the occasional small tat to your opponent and keep the big tits for yourself."

   2002 May 1, G.H. Spaulding, C-C-Cold War Syndrome Or, Remember, It's Break Ground and Fly into the Wind, AuthorHouse, →ISBN

   “Yeah...and a tiny little tat of a bottle of Grinness on his ankle...” As they rode, a warm-front chased the clouds away and the direct sun and warming air began to melt the snow.

   2011 March 20, Thunderhead, The Sacred Clown, Thunderhead, →ISBN, page 475

   If that was a lot of tit for a little tat it didn't bother the French. In the absence of any firm policy in Paris, the military commanders in Algeria began promoting French settlement.

   2012 April 17, Gerald L'Ange, The White Africans: From Colonisation To Liberation, Jonathan Ball Publishers, →ISBN

plural Tats · alternative Tati

1. A member of an Iranian people, presently living within Azerbaijan, Armenia and southern Dagestan in Russia.

alternative Tati

1. A southwestern Iranian language spoken by the Tat people.

   Synonyms: Caucasian Persian

plural TATs

1. abbreviationinitialismaeronauticsInitialism of total air temperature.
2. abbreviationinitialismhuman sciencesInitialism of thematic apperception test.
3. abbreviationinitialismInitialism of turnaround time.