A barrel containing or that has contained tar: esp. as used for making a bonfire; formerly also in the carrying out of capital punishment by burning.
c. 1450. B. M. Add. MS., 10036 (Destr. Jerus. by Vespasian), lf. 24. With bowes schot and with arblast, With tarbarelle and with wilde fyre.
1580. Vestry Bks. (Surtees), 120. Item paid for a tarbarrell at cronation day, vj d.
1654. Trapp, Comm., Mal. i. 9, 621. One fly may corrupt a box of precious ointment: when a hundred flies in a tar-barrel, do no hurt to it.
1674. R. Young, Breviary of Later Persecutions, Scotish Martyrs, 202. The B. servants could not get for their money so much as one cord to tye him to the Stake, or Tar-barrel to burn him.
1685. Lond. Gaz., No. 2080/3. A large Bonfire or high Piramid of Tar-barrels, being erected in the said Market place.
1725. Ramsay, Gentle Sheph., V. i. Till in a fat tar-barrel Mause [a witch] be burnt.
1850. Carlyle, Latter-d. Pamph., i. 2. The European populations everywhere hailed the omen; with shouting and rejoicing, leading-articles and tar-barrels.
† b. Applied opprobriously to a person, Cf. TAR-BOX b. Obs.
1695. Congreve, Love for L., III. vii. If I were a man, you durst not talk at this rate,.. you stinking tar-barrel.
