Forms: 7 tanke, tanque, tancke, tanck, 7– tank. [In sense 1, perh. immediately from an Indian vernacular: cf. Guz. tānkh an underground reservoir for water (Shakespeare), ṭānki a reservoir of water, a small well (Wilson); Marāthi ṭānken, tāken, a reservoir of water, a tank (Wilson); tānkā a cistern of stone inside a house, etc., a reservoir for rain-water: words which some would connect with Skr. taḍāga pond, lake, pool; others think that they are all derived from Pg. tanque pond = Sp. estanque, F. étang:—L. stagnum pond, pool, with which at least the Indian words were identified by the Portuguese, who even in the Roteiro de Vasco da Gama and through the 16th c. applied tanque to the Indian reservoirs, called also in Fr. estang (Pyrard de Laval, c. 1610). The 17th-c. Eng. forms tanque and tanke appear to be taken from the Pg.; tanck, tank, on the other hand, with It. tancho (Varthema, 1510), may have been from Guz. tānkh. As to the Eng. use in senses 1 b and 2, it is not clear whether this came from Anglo-Indian usage, or was immediately related to Pg. tanque. It could scarcely arise out of earlier Eng. or Sc. stank ‘pond, fish-pond, stagnant pool, ditch,’ since this never in sense approached that of tank.]
1. In India, A pool or lake, or an artificial reservoir or cistern, used for purposes of irrigation, and as a storage-place for drinking-water.
c. 1616. Terry, Voy. E. Ind. (1655), 105. Besides their Rivers,… they have many Ponds, which they call Tanques,… fill’d with water when that abundance of Rain fals.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 51. Tancks or couered ponds of water, fild by the beneficiall raines, for the vse and drink of Trauellers.
1638. W. Bruton, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1807), V. 50 (Y.). A very faire Tanke,… a square pit paved with gray marble.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 159. Oblong stone Tank…. In this all of both Sexes Wash (this Solemnity being called the Jatry, or Washing).
1763. Orme, Hist. Mil. Trans., I. V. 356. The tank in which the party intended to take post was, through age and neglect, choaked up, but the mound remained.
1799. Sir T. Munro, in G. R. Gleig, Life (1830), I. iv. 241. One crop under a tank, in Mysore or the Carnatic, yields more than three here.
c. 1813. Mrs. Sherwood, Stories Ch. Catech., xxiv. (1873), 258. Near to the mosque were many trees, and a stone tank, full of clear water.
1877. G. Chesney, in 19th Cent., Nov., 610. The greater part of the irrigation in southern India is effected by means of tanks…. These tanks in fact resemble the reservoirs for water-works now to be found in most parts of England…. Artificial lakes … they more properly deserve to be called.
1885. Daily Tel., 16 Jan. (Cassell). The tank covers seventy-two acres, and is one of the largest in India.
b. A natural pool or pond; a ‘stank.’ dial. and U.S. (Quot. 1678 perh. belongs to 1.)
1678. Phillips (ed. 4), Tank, (old word) a little Pool or Pond.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Words, Tank, a piece of deep water, natural as well as artificial.
1867. Lady Herbert, Cradle L., vii. 169. They took a walk … to the ‘Pool of David,’ a square tank at the bottom of the valley full of rain water.
1890. Amer. Antiquarian, July, 201. Here and there great hollows filled with rain-water. These places are called ‘tanks’ by the ranchmen.
1896. Dialect Notes (Amer.), I. 426 (E.D.D.). Drive your horse into the tank.
2. An artificial receptacle, usually rectangular or cylindrical and often of plate-iron, used for storing water, oil, or other liquids in large quantities.
1690. Dryden, Don Sebast., II. ii. Here’s plentiful provision for you, Rascal, sallating in the Garden, and water in the tanck.
1706. Phillips, Tank,… a Cistern to keep Water in.
1800. D. Laing, Hints for Dwellings, pl. xvii. 13. Water is intended to be brought from the Roof into a Tank sunk under-ground near the Offices, which will be supplied by a Lifting-pump.
1835. Sir J. Ross, Narr. 2nd Voy., xxiv. 234. The ice in the tanks was this day reduced.
1837. Goring & Pritchard, Microgr., 197. The stop-cocks … being opened, the water from the tank will flow freely into the vessels O and H.
1869. E. A. Parkes, Pract. Hygiene (ed. 3), 12. Tanks to hold rainwater require constant inspection.
1871. Young Gentleman’s Ann., Dec., 28. Other engines … carry their water in a tank (called a saddle-tank) which rests on the top of the boiler.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Tank, a subterranean reservoir into which a pump delivers water for another pump to raise.
1891. New York Tribune, 17 Oct., 12/3 (Funk). The gas tank was fifty feet in diameter.
3. Short for tank-engine, -steamer, etc.
1891. Dally News, 23 Sept., 3/3. They were picked up in a very exhausted condition by a German oil tank from New York to Rotterdam.
1903. Westm. Gaz., 31 Dec., 3/2. Trains hauled … by a mammoth tank.
4. attrib. and Comb., as tank-head, -maker, -room, -sinker, -storage, -top, -work; tank-like adj.; spec. in sense 1, as tank-cultivation, -silt, -system, -water; tank-watered adj.; in sense 2, constructed as or fitted with a tank for conveying liquids, etc., esp. mineral oils in bulk, as tank-barge, -boat, -car, -steamer, -train, -truck, -van, -vessel, -wagon; tank-engine, a railway engine that carries the fuel and water receptacles on its own framing and not in a separate tender; tank-furnace, a glass-making furnace furnished with a tank (Cent. Dict., 1891); tank-iron, plate-iron of a thickness suitable for making tanks; tank-locomotive (U.S.) = tank-engine; tank-man, tank-pipe: see quots.; tank-plate = tank-iron; tank-runner, the pheasant-tailed Jacana, or Water-pheasant, Hydrophasianus chirurgus, of India and Ceylon, so called from its ability to run over floating lotus-leaves, etc.; tank-station, a station or place where a tank or tanks are provided, e.g., on a railway for supplying water to the engines or for storing oil, in a mine for storing water; tank-valve: see quot.; tank-waste, the insoluble sediment from the dissolving tanks in alkali works; tank-worm, a nematoid worm inhabiting the mud of Indian tanks, and believed to be the young of the guinea worm.
1894. Labour Commission, Gloss, *Tank-barges,… used specially for conveying tar and oil in bulk in large tanks fitted or built in the barges.
1889. Daily News, 2 Jan., 2/4. The … recent explosion of a *tank-boat near Calais.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., 457/2. *Tank-car. Ibid. (1877), Tank-car, a large tank mounted on a platform-truck for carrying petroleum or other liquid.
1904. Daily Chron., 23 March, 7/3. The railway provides tank cars and tank stations along its route for Russian oil only.
1875. Madras Revenue Board Rep., The *tank cultivation suffered most.
1850. Pract. Mech. Jrnl., III. 33. The centre of the boiler … is 31/2 inches lower in the *tank engine.
1864. Webster, Tank engine.
1902. Westm. Gaz., 4 July, 12/1. A tank-engine of absolutely novel type and colossal dimensions.
1895. Funk’s Standard Dict., *Tank-head, the head or end of a metal tank.
1864. Webster, *Tank-iron.
1846. E. Warburton, Crescent & Cross (ed. 5) II. xi. 160. A curious mound, and a large *tank-like excavation, were the only disturbance of Nature’s order of things that I observed.
1897. Daily News, 18 June, 8/4. Round in shape, but flat and tank-like on the top.
1905. Westm. Gaz., 21 May, 1/3. It consisted of three terraces and a tank-like pond on the basement floor.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Tank locomotive,… one having a tank or tanks enabling it to carry a supply of water sufficient for its own consumption without a tender.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, *Tank-maker, a manufacturer of iron cisterns for ships, or of slate, or well-secured plank cisterns on shore.
1909. Westm. Gaz., 21 May, 4/1. The tank-makers in Germany cannot buy their raw material from abroad.
1891. Labour Commission, Gloss., *Tank-men, men employed in large steamers to look after the water tanks. Ibid. (1894), s.v., Pipes, *Tank pipes, pipes used for filling or emptying the water ballast or fresh water tanks.
1892. Daily News, 4 July, 9/7. *Tank-plates are quoted £6 10s, and rods £7.
1901. Scotsman, 2 March, 9/1. The circulation of sea-water in the *tank-room [of the zoological station].
1905. A. Andrew, Ind. Problems, ii. 51. In most places *tank silt can be got. This is a valuable manure.
1900. H. Lawson, On Track, 37. Bush-fencers, *tank-sinkers, rough carpenters, &c.—were finishing the third and last culvert of their contract.
1889. Daily News, 2 Jan., 2/4. The *tank steamer Oka … represents the advance so far made towards perfection in the building of ships designed for the carriage of [petroleum].
1902. S. Smith, Life-Work, xxii. 214. In Southern India the *tank system prevails.
1900. Engineering Mag., XIX. 678. The margin plates of the *tank top are put on, and the tank-top plating itself.
1901. Munsey’s Mag., XXV. 749/1. Racks for the loading of *tank trains.
1904. Blackw. Mag., May, 609/1. A crowd of Wadaruma women … rushed out to fill their gourds from the *tank-truck behind the engine.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Tank-valve, (Railway Engineering) a form of valve used in locomotive water-supply tanks, for admitting water to the discharge-pipe.
1887. Daily News, 27 July, 6/3. The commoner fish brought in *tank vans was sold by the consignees from the vans.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Tank-vessel.
1890. Nature, XLII. 4 Sept., 446. The occurrence within a comparatively short period of several serious disasters during the discharge of cargoes from tank-vessels.
1886. Pall Mall G., 10 June, 14/1. [He] has invented a system of delivering oil in bulk by means of a street *tank-waggon. Ibid. (1889), 3 Aug., 7/1. A new process for the manufacture of soda … recovers the sulphur of the *tank waste.
1905. A. Andrew, Ind. Problems, ii. 53. Cultivator of *tank-watered land.
1898. Engineering Mag., XVI. 133/1. A Notable Piece of Lead *Tank Work.
1883. Chambers’s Encycl., s.v., There is extreme probability that these *tank-worms are the origin of the guinea-worm.
