Obs. or dial. Also 4–5 tacche, 5–7 tatche, 5–9 tatch. [f. TACHE sb.2, or from the same root. In sense 2 (and sometimes in 1), app. aphetic from atache, ATTACH.]
1. trans. To fasten, attach, fix, secure (a person or thing). Also fig.
a. 1310. in Wright, Lyric P., xxv. 70. Thy love sprenges tacheth me.
c. 1315. Shoreham, Poems, ii. 101. Þo by chyld was an-honge, Itached to þe harde tre Wyþ nayles gret and longe!
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. Wace (Rolls), 12056. Ropes … to tache & teye.
1483. Cath. Angl., 376/2. To Tache, attachiare.
1530. Palsgr., 746/1. I tache a gowne or a typpet with a tache.
1575. Gamm. Gurton, II. iii. To seeke for a thonge Therwith this breech to tatche & tye.
1609. R. Barnerd, Faithf. Sheph., To Rdr. 7. Tatching matter together with dependancie.
2. To lay bold of (a person); esp. to arrest, apprehend by legal authority; = ATTACH v. 1 a.
c. 1400. Laud Troy Bk., 5690. Thei scholde for euere him haue tached, Ne hadde ben duk Menescene.
c. 1440. Jacob’s Well, 24. Alle þat malycyously tachyn, arestyn, or endyten … men of holy cherch.
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, VII. 304. Thar folowed him fyfteyn Wicht, wallyt men … to tach him to the law.
1528. Tyball’s Confess., in Strype, Eccl. Mem. (1721), I. App. xvii. 35. The same day … that Sir Richard Fox was tached.
1530. Palsgr., 746/1. I tache a thefe, I laye handes upon hym.
a. 1635[?]. Forbes, Disc. Pervers Deceit, 6 (Jam.). A cunning and long covered thiefe tatched with innumerable fanges [plunder].
Hence Taching vbl. sb. and ppl. a. Taching end, a shoemaker’s waxed thread pointed with a hog’s bristle.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 485/2. Tachynge, or a-restynge, arestacio.
c. 1485. E. E. Misc. (Warton Club), 73. Grynd hem togedyre a longe tyme one a stone, tylle hit be somdele tacchynge.
c. 1535. Bygod, Impropriations, in Lever’s Serm. (Arb.), Introd. 13. Snatchynge and scratchinge, tatchynge and patchynge, scrapinge and rakynge togyther of almost all the fatte benefyces.
1611. Cotgr., Ligneul, shoomakers thread; or, a tatching end.
a. 1763. Shenstone, Ess., Men & Manners (1765), 187. A cobler with ten or a dozen children dependent on a tatching end.
1858. H. Ainsworth, Mervyn Clitheroe, i. 15. Canes … tied with tatching end to prevent them from splitting.
1881. Leicestersh. Gloss., s.v. Every piece of ‘tachin-end’ used in joining has a hog’s bristle fixed at each end so as to act as a kind of flexible needle.
