Forms: 1 tæppe, (5 tappe, 6 tapp); 4– tape. [OE. tæppe or tæppa (nom. not found); origin unascertained. The lengthening of the vowel from ME. tappe to tāpe is unexplained.]
1. A narrow woven strip of stout linen, cotton, silk, or other textile, used as a string for tying garments, and for other purposes for which flat strings are suited, also for measuring lines, etc.
c. 1000. Ælfric’s Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 107/33. Tenia, tæppan (pl.), uel dolsmeltas.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Miller’s T., 55. The tapes of hir white voluper Were of the same suyte of hir coler.
c. 1425. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 655/15. Hec tenea, tappe.
1519. Churchw. Acc. St. Giles, Reading, 5. For tapis for iij0 Amys id ob.
1573–80. Baret, Alv., T 60. A Tape, to knit the apron about with.
1628. L. Owen, Unmask. Monks, 79. A little picture of S. Francis, sewed in an old clout, or peece of one of their old habits; wishing her to weare that (tyed with a tape or riband) about her necke.
1690. Lond. Gaz., No. 2529/4. Lost…, a black Box … tied about with a white Tape.
1805. Trans. Soc. Arts, etc. XXIII. 119. A measuring tape … having inches on one side.
1833. Holland, Manuf. Metal, II. 225. When the rollers revolve, the motion of the tapes carry the sheet of paper with them, and deliver it over another roller,… where it is taken up by two sets of endless tapes.
1866. Anna C. Ritchie, Mute Singer, iii. 53. By and by, she discovered that she had lost the measure of Sylvie’s girdle, but it was some time before she could summon courage to approach her, and make a frightened attempt to pass the tape around her slender waist.
1879. Jas. Grant, in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 270/1. A partner in the manufactory of inkles and tapes.
b. Without article, as name of the material or substance. Also fig.: see RED-TAPE.
1537–8. Rec. St. Mary at Hill, 378. Paid for silke tape iijs iiijd.
1546. in W. H. Turner, Select. Rec. Oxford (1880), 184. For viij yardes and a half of tape.
1602. Plat, Delightes for Ladies, I. xliv. Keep these three parts bound together with tape till you haue cause to vse them.
1653. Walton, Angler, vii. 158. A convenient quantitie of tape or filiting.
1714. Gay, Sheph. Week, Monday, 37. This pouch, that’s ty’d with tape of reddest hue.
1856. Reade, Never too late to mend, xxv. Twenty years gone in tape and circumlocution.
1898. J. Berwick, Philos. Romance, iv. 46. Reams of blue paper tied with pink tape.
c. A piece of tape suspended across the course at the finishing point in a race, or (formerly) between the goal-posts in Association football.
1867. Routledge’s Handbk. Football, 54. Football Association Rules…. A goal shall be won when the ball passes between the goal-posts under the tape.
1868. H. F. Wilkinson, Mod. Athletics, 17–18. The Goal … should consist of a piece of stout white tape tied to the post at one side … and held loosely by the judge across the course, so that when the winner passes the post he may carry the tape away.
1880. Times, 12 Nov., 4/5. The ball is shot under the tape or over the bar, and the call of time immediately afterwards proclaims the game at an end.
2. A long, narrow, thin and flexible strip of metal or the like; esp. such a strip of steel used as a measuring line in surveying.
1884. Health Exhib. Catal., 77/2. Solid Copper Tape Lightning Conductor.
1884. Edin. Rev., July, 48. The main stem of the conductor shall consist of a copper rod or tape.
1900. H. M. Wilson, Topogr. Surv., xxi. 500. The steel tape is capable of giving a precision indicated by a probable error of one 2,000,000th part of a measured line. Ibid. Base measurement with steel tapes.
b. The paper strip or ribbon on which messages are printed in the receiving instrument of a recording telegraph system.
1884. Pall Mall G., 27 Dec., 5/2. This ‘tape’ is supplied by a telegraphic company, and automatically records in dozens of different offices in the City the variation of prices from hour to hour inside the House.
1888. Besant, 50 Years Ago, 213. Now we watch the tape, day by day, and hour by hour.
1905. Preece & Sivewright, Telegraphy, 171. Punching and feeding the tape forward is performed by an electromagnet. Ibid., 172. To produce a type-printed page from the record perforated on the tape.
1912. A. O. Crozier, U.S. Money vs. Corporation Currency, 186, Illust. title. Tale of the Tape.
3. slang. Spirituous liquor, esp. gin (white tape); red tape, brandy. Cf. RIBBON sb. 4 c.
1725. New Cant. Dict., Tape, Red or White, Geneva, Aniseed, Clove. Water, &c. so called by Canters and Villains, and the Renters of the Tap … in Newgate, and other Prisons.
1755. Connoisseur, No. 53, ¶ 4. Every night-cellar [will] furnish you with Holland Tape, three yards a penny.
1830. Lytton, P. Clifford, x. (1854), 80. Red tape those as likes it may drain.
1837. Thackeray, Ravenswing, vi. Gin…, under the name of ‘tape,’ used to be measured out pretty liberally in what was … his Majesty’s prison of the Fleet.
4. attrib. and Comb., as, in sense 1, tape-length, -maker, -making, -molding, -purl (PURL sb.1 2), -ribbon, -seller, -string, -stripe, -weaver, -work; tape-like, -slashing adjs.; in sense 2 b, ‘of, or recorded by, the telegraphic tape,’ tape-price, -report, -system; tape-printing adj. Also tape-bound a., bound with tape; = tape-tied; tape-carrier, a frame in which a tape sprinkled with powdered corundum is mounted as a cutting or filing instrument; tape-fish, an eel-like fish having a flat elongated body, a ribbon-fish; tape-fuse, a ribbon-like fuse, very rapid in action; tape-grass, an aquatic herb, Vallisneria spiralis, with narrow grass-like leaves; tape-line, a line of tape; spec. a strip of linen or steel marked with subdivisions of the foot or meter, sometimes coiling in a cylindrical case with a winch or spring; tape-machine, (a) the receiving instrument of a recording telegraph system, in which the message is printed on a paper tape; (b) = tape-sizing machine (Cent. Dict., Supp. 1909); tape-man, in Surveying, each of the two men who measure with the tape-line; tape-measure, a measuring line of prepared tape, marked with feet and inches, etc., esp. one of five or six feet long used by tailors, dressmakers, etc.; tape-needle, an eyed bodkin for inserting tape; tape-primer, an obsolete primer for fire-arms, consisting of a flexible paper or other band containing small fulminating charges at equal distances; tape-sizer, a man in charge of the machine (tape-sizing machine or tape-machine) for sizing the cotton warp threads to be used in weaving; = TAPER sb.3; tape-stretcher, a contrivance to maintain a uniform tension of the measuring line in surveying; tape-ticker = tape-machine; tape-tied a., tied with tape; also fig. bound by ‘red-tape,’ restricted by officialism; so tape-tying a.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 5 July, 5/2. Should the *tape-bound authorities in Pall Mall blankly refuse to equip … the 320 extra men.
1885. C. F. Holder, Marvels Anim. Life, 101. The band or *tape-fishes, from their snake-like appearance, are first worthy of notice.
1857. Gray, First Lessons Bot. (1866), 167. This may be … seen in the leaves of the Freshwater *Tape Grass (Vallisneria), under a good microscope.
1900. H. M. Wilson, Topogr. Surv., xxiii. 533. Both tapemen keep a record of the number of *tape-lengths between stations.
1820. R. Hooper, Anatomist’s Vade-M., 229. The corpus fimbriatum, a flat *tape-like substance.
1880. Barwell, Aneurism, 6. Broad, tape-like ligatures were used.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., III. 838. The passage of pipe-like or tape-like motions is … due merely to the action of the sphincter.
1847. Webster, *Tapeline.
1858. in Simmonds, Dict. Trade.
1893. Selous, Trav. S. E. Africa, 91. A few measurements … taken on the spot with a tape-line.
1891. Daily News, 9 April, 7/1. Some twenty or thirty men, who were crowding round a *‘tape machine’ … waiting for the result of the second race of the day to come through.
1900. H. M. Wilson, Topogr. Surv., xxiv. 532. The *tapemen measure the distance with the steel tape, which is stretched by a twenty-pound tension on the front end by the fore tapeman with a spring-balance.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Tape measure.
1907. Westm. Gaz., 20 March, 10/1. As tested by the tape-measure … the … giantess might make an excellent claim to be the ‘greatest’ woman who has ever lived.
1863. Archæol. Cantiana, V. 14. A portion of the old *tape moulding or parallel band.
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., xv. I’ll look your box over.—Thimble, wax,… scissors, knife, *tape-needle; all right.
1880. Plain Hints Needlework, 68. Tape-needle is generally used in the North of England instead of this word [bodkin]—and … would be better if more generally used, to describe what it really is, a needle to run a piece of tape into a hem, or caseing.
1895. Daily News, 14 June, 5/2. The machines set up in the offices record the prices on the familiar strips of paper from which the name of *‘tape prices’ is taken.
1903. Q. Rev., Jan., 106. Tape-prices do not represent actual transactions.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2495/2. The *tape-primer required a peculiar lock, having a recess for containing the tape and mechanism for advancing each primer successively to the nipple.
1903. Westm. Gaz., 25 Aug., 2/3. The fee charged for maintaining and superintending the *tape-printing telegraph machine which supplies the Peers with news in the Prince’s Chamber.
a. 1652. Brome, Queen & Concub., IV. i. Lol. Can you handle the Bobbins well, good Woman? Make statute-Lace? you shall have my Daughter. Pogg. And mine, to make *Tape-Purles.
1901. Westm. Gaz., 20 June, 6/3. The *‘tape’ report … said there was no opposition to the Charing Cross, Euston, and Hampstead Railway scheme.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., VIII. § 128. He commanded every Man to tye a white *tape Ribban, or Handkerchief above the Elbow of their right Arme.
1835. Willis, Pencillings, I. ii. 20. The Marseilles *tapeseller.
1897. S. Webb, Indust. Democ., I. IV. iv. 105–6; II. II. x. 478. *Tape-sizers.
1891. Labour Commission, Gloss., The machine used by the taper is called the *tape-sizing machine.
1882. Standard, 7 Sept., 2/3. The enormous *tape-slashing machines,… followed.
1900. H. M. Wilson, Topogr. Surv., xxi. 501. *Tape-stretchers.
1871. Figure Training, 57. The ladies … prohibit all restriction of the waist except by the aid of a broad band and *tape-strings.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., XX. v. (1873), IX. 78. These long lanes, or *tape-stripes of the Torgau Forest.
1904. Daily News, 6 July, 7. Mr. Francis E. Macmahon, inventor of the *tape ticker, died very suddenly at Newmarket yesterday morning.
1732. Pope, Ep. Bathurst, 301. A flock-bed … With *tape.ty’d curtains, never meant to draw.
1748. Thomson, Cast. Indol., I. 502. Whose desk and table make a solemn show, With tape-tied trash.
1900. Daily News, 1 Aug., 3/1. Good scouts … of more importance to an army in the field than all the tape-tied intelligence officers out of Hades.
1832. Fraser’s Mag., Oct., 382. The *tape-tying crew who had wriggled themselves into office.
1725. Lond. Gaz., No. 6380/12. Robert Johnson,… *Tape-weaver.
1890. W. J. Gordon, Foundry, 208. The paper supports itself all through the machine, and the *tapework is reduced to a minimum.
