tabby Hear it!

tabby definition

tabby (tabē)

noun pl. tabbies -·bies

  1. a silk taffeta with stripes or wavy markings; watered silk
  2. a light-colored cat with darker stripes, sometimes of another color
  3. any domestic cat, esp. a female
  4. Brit., Informal
    1. an old maid
    2. a malicious woman gossip

Etymology: Fr tabis, earlier atabis < ML attabi < Ar al-ʼattābīya < ʿattābī, the quarter of Baghdad where it was manufactured: after a prince ʼAttāb, of the Omayyad dynasty

adjective

  1. made of, or like, tabby
  2. having dark stripes over gray or brown; brindled

transitive verb tabbied -·bied, tabbying -·by·ing

to make wavy markings in (silk, etc.)

Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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