East Ind. Also tattie, tattee, tatti. [a. Hindī ṭaṭṭū.] A screen or mat, usually made of the roots of the fragrant cuscus grass, which is placed in a frame so as to fill up the opening of a door or window, and kept wet, in order to cool and freshen the air of a room. Abbreviated TAT (sb.3).
1792. Williams, in Phil. Trans., LXXXIII. 131. Tatties … are affixed to the door or window frames, and kept constantly sprinkled with water.
1809. Broughton, Lett. Mahratta Camp, x. (1892), 83. The hot winds have set in, and we are obliged to make use of tattees, a kind of screens made of the roots of a coarse grass called Kus.
1811. H. Marten, in Mem., III. (1825), 342. I got a tattie made of the branches of the date tree, and a Persian peasant to water it.
1901. Indian Standard, 16 March, 1/1. Those who … have neither Khas Tatties nor thermantidotes will pant … for want of fresh air.
attrib. 1848. trans. Hoffmeister’s Trav. Ceylon, etc., vii. 277. [Rooms with] but one external entrance, and that closed up by means of a tatty-frame.
Hence Tattied a., furnished with a tatty or tatties.
1894. Blackw. Mag., Sept., 387/2. The Anglo-Indian is a close prisoner within the kus-kus tattied walls.
