Obs. Also 5 tarter, -yr, -or, 5–6 -ir, (6 tarterus, tartarium). [= OF. tartare, tartaire (c. 1300 in Godef.), med.L. tartarium, tartarens (pannus) ‘cloth of Tartary.’ Cf. TARS, TARTARIN1 2, and quot. 1880.] A rich kind of cloth, probably silk, used in 15th and 16th centuries; the same as TARTARIN1 2.
1473. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scotl., I. 16. Item, for v. elne of tartar to lyne a gowne of clath of gold to the King. Ibid. (1488), 85. Item, a couering of variand purpir tartar, browdin with thrissillis and a vnicorne. Ibid. (1494) 224. j ell of tartor to lyne the hud. Ibid. (1496), 298. Item, for viij elne of tartyr, to the Kingis jakat of clath of gold,… vijli. iiijs.
a. 1500. Flower & Leaf, 212. On every trumpe hanging a brood banere Of fyn tartarium, were ful richly bete.
1501. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scotl., II. 28. Item, for half an eine tartir to the tothir scarlet hos to bordour thaim with.
1502. Arnolde, Chron., 73. Item of carde, bokram, fustian, clothes of gold and of silke, veluet, damask, sateyn, taffata, tarterus, couerchis,… the same broker shall haue for the valur of euery xx. s. iij. dl.
1602. Segar, Hon. Mil. & Civ., II. xi. 71. One Knight shall giue him his shirt, another his hose, the third his dublet, another shall apparell him in a kertle of red Tartar.
[1880. Birdwood, Ind. Arts, II. 73. Tartariums, Colonel Yule believes, were so called ‘not because they were made in Tartary, but because they were brought from China through the Tartar dominions.’]
b. Comb. Tartar-satin.
1483–4. in Swayne, Sarum Churchw. Acc. (1896), 35. Pro tribus le nailes de tartersaten’ pro emendacione vestamenti.
