Also 7 taby. [In sense 1, a. F. tabis, earlier atabis (both 14th or early 15th c. in Godef.), Sp., Pg., It. tabi, med.L. attābi (M. Devic in Littré), app. a. Arab. [symbol]attābiy, name of a quarter of Bagdad in which this stuff was manufactured, named after ’Attāb, great-grandson of Omeyya. Of this quarter Yule cites from an Arab writer of the 12th c. ‘Here are made the stuffs, called ’Attābīya, which are silks and cottons of divers colours.’
The connection of the other senses is not very clear. Tabby cat, instanced in 1695, is generally held to have been so named from the striped or streaked color of its coat. The simple tabby, in the same sense, is much later (1774). Tabby, old maid, is usually associated with tabby a cat; but it appears earlier, and may have originated as the familiar contraction of Tabitha (cf. Abby for Abigail), as an old-fashioned female name, and have become humorously associated with tabby cat. It is possible that tabby in the sense of she-cat originated in Tabby for Tabitha; otherwise it is difficult to see any sense-connection between she-cat and brindled cat, since a tom-cat may also be brindled or striped. Sense 4 of the sb. prob. arose from resemblance to the markings of the tabby cat: the origin of sense 5 is very uncertain, and sense 6 may be a different word, though it may also have originated in a fancied resemblance of color to that of the tabby cat.]
A. sb.
1. A general term for a silk taffeta, app. originally striped, but afterwards applied also to silks of uniform color waved or watered.
1638. [see B. 1].
1647. Herrick, Noble Numb., New-Yeeres Gift. Let others looke for pearle and gold, Tissues or tabbies manifold. Ibid. (1648), Hesper., Life is the Bodies Light, 3. Those counter-changed Tabbies in the ayre, (The Sun once set) all of one colour are.
1654. Whitelocke, Jrnl. Swed. Emb. (1772), II. 153. The bride and bridegroome were both clothed in white tabby.
1662. J. Davies, trans. Olearius’ Voy. Ambass., 23. One piece of silver’d Taby, with flowers of Gold.
1696. Lond. Gaz., No. 3228/4. Lost…, a Child’s Mantle, or a Sky-colour Tabby.
1720. Swift, Song, Wks. 1755, IV. I. 29. Brocados and damasks, and tabbies and gawses.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Tabby, a Sort of Silk, waved or watered. Ibid. (1736), (folio), Tabby, a kind of coarse Silk taffety watered.
1745. Pococke, Descr. East, II. I. viii. 125. The manufactures they [of Damascus] export, are chiefly burdets of silk and cotton, either striped or plain, and also plain silks like tabbies.
1760. H. Walpole, Lett. to Earl of Strafford, 7 June. The Duke of York, who was dressed in a pale blue watered tabby.
1868. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-Bks. (1879), II. 61. His lady in crimson tabby.
1888. W. Morris, Arts & Crafts Catal., 19. A different tone is obtained by the figure and the ground being woven with a longer or shorter twill: the tabby being tied by the warp very often, the satin much more rarely.
b. Short for tabby gown or dress.
a. 1727. Mrs. Delany, in Life & Corr. (1861), I. 124. To alter my white tabby and my new clothes.
1786. Mme. D’Arblay, Diary, 29 Sept. I wore my memorable present-gown this day…. It is a lilac tabby.
1881. Besant & Rice, Chapl. of Fleet, II. 58. A watered tabby would become you.
2. Short for tabby cat (see B. 2): A cat having a striped or brindled coat.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1862), I. IV. iii. 423. The civet varies in its colour, being sometimes streaked, as in our kind of cats called tabbies.
1874. Gordon Stables, Cats, i. 8. Brown Tabby. Colour to be rich brown, striped and marked with black… They are the true English cats, and if well trained, possess all pussy’s noblest attributes to perfection. Ibid., 9. Blue or Silver Tabby. Colour to be blue, or silver grey, striped and marked with black. Ibid., 12. Red and White Tabby. Colour to be reddish or sandy, marked with white.
1903. Daily Chron., 28 Oct., 3/1. Among silver tabbies,… Sweet William and … Dame Fortune were particularly noteworthy.
b. Also, A she-cat: correlative to tom-cat.
1826–8. Townley’s High Life below Stairs (acting ed.). Your cat has kittened—two Toms and two Tabbies.
1903. Speaker, 14 Feb., 486/2. Where is the centurion who has ever commanded a tom-cat, the astronomer who predicted the movements of a tabby?
3. An old or elderly maiden lady: a dyslogistic appellation; often with a half-humorous attribution of certain qualities of the cat; sometimes applied to any spiteful or ill-natured female gossip or tattler: cf. also CAT sb.1 2.
[1748: see B. 3].
1761. G. Colman, Jealous Wife, II. iii. I am not sorry for the coming in of these old tabbies.
1782. Eliz. Blower, Geo. Bateman, I. 222. A delightful ground-work, on which the tabbies of Clairfield embroidered a thousand different anecdotes.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Tabby, an old maid; either from Tabitha, a formal antiquated name; or else from a tabby cat, old maids being often compared to cats.
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s, xxxiii. Why should not I pay my respects to Lady Penelope, or any other tabby of quality?
1843. Lever, J. Hinton, xiii. I was playing whist with the tabbies when it occurred.
1894. [see TABLEAU 2 c].
4. A collector’s name for two Pyralid moths, the Tabby, Aglossa pinguinalis, and the Small Tabby, A. cuprealis, both with fore wings greyish brown, clouded with a darker color.
1819. G. Samouelle, Entomol. Compend., 427. Pyralis capreolalis.… The small Tabby. pinguinalis.… The Tabby. Ibid., 435. The tea Tabby.
1859. Stainton, Man. Butterfl. & Moths, II. 135. Aglossa pinguinalis (Tabby)…. Abundant everywhere. A. cuprealis (Small Tabby).
† 5. Padding or quilting to improve the figure. Tabbies, padded or quilted stays. Obs.
1748. Foote, Knights, II. i. Ward, at the Cat and Gridiron, Petticoat-lane, makes tabby all over for people inclined to be crooked; and, if he was to have the universal world for making a pair of stays, he could not put better stuff in them. Ibid. (1752), Taste, I. i. Lady Pentweazel. Bless me, Mr. Carmine, don’t mind my shape this bout; for I am only in jumps. Shall I send for my tabbies?
8. A concrete formed of a mixture of lime with shells, gravel, or stones in equal proportions, which when dry becomes very hard. Orig. tabby work.
1802. A. Ellicott, Jrnl. (1803), 267. A small battery of tabby work (as it is called in that country [Georgia]), which is a composition of broken oyster shells and lime.
1836. Smart, Tabby … a mixture of stone or shell and mortar.
1887. Cassell’s Encycl. Dict. cites Weale.
B. adj. (attrib. use of sb.)
1. Made or consisting of tabby (see A. 1).
1638. T. Verney, in V. Papers (1853), 197. First, for one good cloth sute, and one taby or good stuff sute.
1661. Pepys, Diary, 13 Oct. This day … put on … my false taby wastecoate with gold lace.
a. 1712. W. King, Art of Love, 1043. If she in tabby waves encircled be,… If by her the purpureal velvet’s worn.
1748. H. Walpole, Lett. (1846), II. 224. A new sky-blue watered tabby coat.
1863. Le Fanu, Ho. by Churchyard, III. 127. Mrs. Sturk … sat in a dingy old tabby saque.
2. Of a brownish, tawny, or grey color, marked with darker parallel stripes or streaks; brindled: primarily and especially in tabby cat or tabby-cat, a cat of this coloration, or (by extension) of other color similarly marked: see A. 2. In quot. 1789 ellipt. = tabby coloration.
[1665: cf. tabby-coloured in C.]
c. 1689. Prior, Ld. Buckhurst playing w. Cat, 21. On her tabby rival’s face She deep will mark her new disgrace.
1695. Congreve, Love for L., II. iii. I can bring witness that … you suckle a young devil in the shape of a tabby-cat.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 176. It was a Tigre … of a light Yellow, streaked with Black, like a Tabby Cat.
1702. Pope, Wife of Bath, 142. The Cat, if you but singe her tabby skin, The chimney keeps.
1747. Gray, Lett. to Walpole, in Mason, Life (1775), 188. Then as to your handsome Cat,… it must be the tabby one that had met with this sad accident. Ibid. (1747), Cat, 4. Demurest of the tabby kind.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, I. 347. Cats … in the woods are all of the uniformly-streaked Tabby.
1796. Stedman, Surinam (1813), II. xviii. 62. The spotted cat [fish] is called so from its tabby color and long whiskers.
1903. Longm. Mag., Sept., 450. It had been brought up from infancy with a tabby kitten.
fig. (cf. A. 3). 1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Mast. Greylands, xv. A meddling, tattling, tabby-cat set of women!
b. Tabby-cat striation, ‘the appearance presented in extreme fatty degeneration of muscle’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.).
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 871. The heart … often shows some fatty degeneration of the myocardium (tabby-cat striation). Ibid. (1898), V. 530. The musculi papillares … are nearly always variegated by wavy whitish streaks—the ‘tabby-cat striation’ of Quain.
3. Of or pertaining to a tabby, in sense A. 3.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), VI. lv. 227. The two antiques only bowed their tabby heads.
C. attrib. and Comb., as tabby weaving (see A. 1); tabby-colored adj.; tabby-cat (see B. 2); tabby-waterer, one who waters or tabbies silk by a process of calendering; tabby work: see A. 6.
1665. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1677), 304. Cats … very large they are and tabby-coloured, streakt like those of Cyprus.
1845. S. Judd, Margaret, xvi. 144. Two birds, the male and female, darted angrily at her, and ruffled their golden-green and tabby-colored feathers, as if they would fight her.
1867. Smiles, Huguenots Eng. (1880), 373. [He] carried on the business of a calenderer and Tabby Waterer.
1879. A. Barlow, Weaving, 89. A piece of plain woven cloth is represented … as it would be drawn by the designer, and it is generally called ‘tabby’ or plain weaving.
