Also 5–6 Tartarien, 9 Tatarian. [c. 1400 (see A) a. OF. Tartarien (13th c. in Godef.); later f. med.L. Tartaria TARTARY + -AN.]
A. sb. = TARTAR sb.2 1.
c. 1400. Maundev. (1839), xxiii. 247. Of the lawe & the customs of the Tartarienes, duellynge in Chatay. Ibid., 252. Alle the Tartarienes [Roxb. xxvi. 124 Tartarenes] han smale eyen.
1538. Tartarien [see RUSSIAN sb.1].
1599. Thynne, Animadv. (1875), 54. The Tartarians obteyned the kingdome of Syria in the yere 1240.
1708. E. Cook, Sot-weed Factor (1900), 10. My Friend suppos’d Tartarians wild, Or Chinese from their Home exiled.
1835. K. H. Digby, Mores Catholici, VI. ii. (1846), II. 27/2. Fitter for those hords of Tartarians than for a commonwealth of Christians.
b. ‘A cant word for a thief’ (Nares).
1608. Merry Devil Edmonton, in Hazl., Dodsley, X. 212. There’s not a Tartarian nor a carrier shall breathe upon your geldings.
1640. Wandering Jew, 3 (Nares). if any thieving Tartarian shall break in upon you, I will, with both hands nimbly lend a cast of my office to him.
B. adj. Of or pertaining to Tartary or its people; = TARTAR a.
1590. Webbe, Trav. (Arb.), 18. The Tartarian Souldiers had wonderfull greate and rich spoyles.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turks (1638), 196. Tamerlane the great Tartarian prince,… in a great battell at mount Stella, abated the Othoman pride.
1634. W. Wood, New Eng. Prosp. (1865), 30. As swift as arrow from Tartarian Bow.
a. 1725. Ld. Whitworth, Acc. Russia in 1710 (1758), 9. Casan and Astracan were Tartarian kingdoms.
1839. For. Q. Rev., XXII. 109. Interesting to the readers of Tartarian tales.
1845. Proc. Philol. Soc., II. 171. The Tartarian class of languages … furnishes a valuable confirmation of this theory.
b. In names of things of actual or supposed Tartar origin; as Tartarian bread (see quot. 1829); Tartarian lamb, the ‘Scythian’ or ‘vegetable lamb,’ a polypodiaceous fern, Cibotium Barometz, from the resemblance which its woolly root-stock, inverted, bears to a lamb: see BAROMETZ, and cf. Maundeville (1839), ch. xxvi. (Roxb. xxix.). Also Tartarian cherry, honeysuckle, maple, motherwort, oat, etc., for which see the sbs.
1805. Dickson, Pract. Agric., I. 578. In the Siberian or Tartarian oat the grains are thin and small.
1811. Pinkerton, Mod. Geogr. (ed. 3), 346. The … Tatarian honey-suckle, Tatarian mulberry, and the Daourian rose, form thickets of exquisite beauty.
1817. Shelley, Rev. Islam, VI. xix. A black Tartarian horse of giant frame Comes trampling o’er the dead.
1823. Crabb, Technol. Dict., Tartarian lamb.
1829. Loudon, Encycl. Plants, 557. [Crambe] tatarica is called by the Hungarians Tatar-Kenyer or Tartarian bread, and its root stripped of the bark and sliced is eaten with oil, vinegar, and salt.
1836. Penny Cycl., VI. 431/2. The Tartarian cherries of the English gardens.
1866. Treas. Bot., 280/1. C[ibotium] Barometz, sometimes called C. glaucescens, is believed to be the Baranetz, Agnus Scythicus, or Tartarian Lamb, about which travellers have told so wondrous a tale.
1882. Garden, 13 May, 322/2. The ordinary white-flowered form of the Tartarian Honeysuckle [Lonicera tatarica].
