Forms: 8 tat(t)aow, 8–9 tattow, tatoo, 9 tatto, tatu, 8- tattoo. [In 18th c. tattaow, tattow, a. Polynesian (Tahitian, Samoan, Tongan, etc.) tatau (in Marquesan tatu) sb. denoting the markings. (For the vb. the expression is ta tatau to strike or stamp tattoo.)
The word is recorded from Tahiti as tataou in Bougainville’s Voyage autour du Monde, 1766–9. (Paris, 1771), and as tattow in Capt. Cook’s First Voyage, July, 1769. The current Eng. tattoo and F. tatou are perversions of the native name.]
The act or practice of tattooing the skin (see TATTOO v.2); the mark or design made by tattooing.
[1769. Cook, Jrnl. 1st Voy., July (1893), 93. Both sexes paint their Bodys, Tattow, as it is called in their Language. This is done by inlaying the Colour of Black under their skins, in such a manner as to be indelible.]
1777. G. Forster, Voy. round World, I. 390. The punctuation which the natives call tattow.
1803. J. Burney, Discov. S. Sea, I. ii. 61. They [natives of the Philippines] had the custom of marking their bodies in the manner, which, to use a word lately adopted from the language of a people more recently discovered, we call tattow.
1863. R. F. Burton, Abeokuta, I. iii. 104. There was a vast variety of tattoos and ornamentation.
1906. Athenæum, 17 March, 334/2. The Kenyabs and Sea-Dayaks also appear to have borrowed the practice of tatu very largely from the Kenyans; but most of the Indonesian tribes have all had … a distinctive tatu.
b. attrib. and Comb.
1845. J. Coulter, Adv. in Pacific, xiv. 209. Then entered the tatoo-men.
1899. Werner, Capt. of Locusts, 9. His teeth are not filed, and he has strange tattoo-marks on his face.
