[f. TANK sb.1 or v. + -AGE.)
1. Tanks collectively; a provision or system of storage-tanks, sometimes with special reference to its capacity. Also attrib.
1856. Agric. Gaz., 6 Dec., 811/2. The whole cost per acre of tankage, pipeage, engine, pumps, and other fittings, may be taken on an average at 5l.
1866. J. E. H. Skinner, After the Storm, I. xvii. 226. There was more fencing in and a greater show of tankage about the wells at Pithole Run…. Huge tanks, like brewers’ vats surrounded ‘54.’
1883. Century Mag., XXVI. 332. A tankage capacity of over thirty millions of barrels.
1892. Daily News, 21 July, 2/3. The Baltimore Electric Refining Company … has already contracted to double its tankage.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 27 March, 6/1. The Russian firms have an extensive tankage system in England.
1904. Daily Chron., 2 June, 7/5. A depôt … will be secured … for the purpose of erecting several big tankages, warehouses, and the necessary plant for the unloading of the company’s own tank steamers.
2. The act or process of storing liquid in tanks; the price charged for this.
1891. in Cent. Dict.
3. The residue from tanks in which fat, etc., has been rendered, used as a coarse food, and as manure.
1886. Sci. Amer., LV. 149. A new drier adapted for drying … tankage, sewage, clay, fertilizers, etc.
1887. F. H. Storer, Agric. (1892), I. xiv. 388. Under the name of tankage, a kind of flesh-meal is prepared in this country [U.S.] from the refuse meat, entrails, and other offal that accumulate in slaughter-houses.
1898. Engineering Mag., XVI. 128/1. The receiving tanks,… each receiving the cooked garbage, called tankage, from four digesters.
