[f. TACK v.1 + -ING1.] The action of TACK v.1 in various senses.
a. Joining or fastening together, now esp. in a slight or temporary manner; also, that which is tacked or joined on.
1713. Derham, Phys. Theol., IV. viii. (1714), 159. The Muscles, their curious Structure, the nice tacking them to every Joynt.
1880. A. Arnold, Free Land, 133. As to mortgages, Mr. Joshua Williams described that nefarious dealing … known as ‘tacking.’
1888. Mrs. H. Ward, R. Elsmere, xiv. You don’t know anything about tacking or fixing, or the abominable time they take.
1887. Saintsbury, Hist. Elizab. Lit., ix. (1890), 351. [In Hobbes’s Human Nature] the terse phrasing, the independence of all after-thoughts and tackings-on, manifest themselves at once.
b. The attaching to a money-bill in parliament of a measure for some other purpose.
1700. Evelyn, Diary, April. This tacking of bills is a novel practice, suffer’d by K. Cha. II. who … let any thing pass rather than not have wherewith to feed his extravagance.
a. 1745. Swift, Four last Y. Q. Anne, III. Wks. (Bohn), I. 471/2. The reasonableness of uniting to a money-bill one of a different nature, which is usually called tacking, hath been likewise much debated, and will admit of argument enough.
1909. A. Grant, in Contemp. Rev., Nov., 540. The argument that the Finance Bill of this year is an instance of ‘tacking,’ that is, of the inclusion in a Money Bill of clauses not dealing with Finance.
c. Naut. The action of making a tack or a series of tacks (TACK sb.1 6).
1675. trans. Camden’s Hist. Eliz., III. 414. Ships fit for Fight, Good Sailers, and nimble and light for tacking about which way they would.
1806. A. Duncan, Nelson, 86. The damage … prevented him from tacking.
1868. E. Edwards, Ralegh, I. vii. 111. [The] great galleons … had to encounter the quick fire and the deft tacking of the smaller … ships of England.
d. attrib., as tacking-cotton, -needle, -thread.
1880. Plain Hints Needlework, 57. ‘Basting’ or ‘tacking cotton.’
1898. Westm. Gaz., 7 April, 3/2. Then run a tacking cotton (no back stitches) all round the four sides…. Press the fold of lace till it is nearly dry before you take out the tacking threads. Ibid., 8 Oct., 4/1. A sailor’s tacking needle.
