Also 8 tarpous, 9 tarboush, -bouch, -bush. [a. Arabic ṭarbūsh; so called in Egypt (Freytag); in F. tarbouch.] A cap of cloth or felt (almost always red) with a tassel (usually of blue silk) attached at the top, worn by Mohammedans either by itself or as part of the turban; the fez is the Turkish form.
1702. W. J., trans. Bruyn’s Voy. Levant, xx. 91. This Tarpous, which serves the Women as a sort of a Head-dress, is a large Cap of Six or eight Quarters, made of Cloth of Gold.
1813. Burckhardt, Trav. Egypt & Nubia (1819), 15. This [attire], poor as it is, being thought too symbolic of wealth to travel with among the inhabitants of the wastes he had to pass, was exchanged for a course brown goat’s wool shirt, a simple tarboosh or skull cap, and a pair of Bedouin sandals.
1839. Lane, Arab. Nts. (1859), I. iv. 256. He took the turban with its tarboosh,… and kept them himself. Ibid., 288, note. The Tarboosh is a woollen skull-cap, of a deep blood-red colour, having a tassel of dark blue silk attached to the crown. It is worn by most Arabs of the higher and middle classes.
1884. J. Colborne, Hicks Pasha, 105. The tarboosh, or fez—as it is called in Turkey—… is adopted by Mussulmans, as it allows for the fufilment of the Mahommedan observance in prayer of touching the earth with the forehead.
1885. Lady Brassey, Trades, 291. Turks Islands derive their name from a beautiful scarlet cactus, in shape like a fez or tarbouch.
Hence Tarbooshed, tarbushed a. [-ED2], wearing a tarboosh.
1857. R. F. Burton, Pilgr. El Medinah & Meccah (ed. 2), II. xxi. 66. And nothing stranger than the contrast;—a band of half-naked Takruri marching with the Pacha’s equipage, and long-capped, bearded Persians conversing with Tarbushed and shaven Turks.
1873. Leland, Egypt. Sketch-Bk., viii. 106. Through them tarbushed or turbaned and dark men peered curiously at the strangers.
