something that is a persistent encumbrance
Origin of tar baby
after a small, sticky tar figure in a story by Joel Chandler Harristar baby
tar babyWebster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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"tar baby." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 14 January 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/tar-baby>.
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tar baby. (n.d.). Retrieved January 14th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/tar-baby
tar baby
noun
- A inextricable situation or difficult and pressing problem that often grows worse as one tries to deal with it.
- Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a black person, especially a dark-skinned black child.
Origin of tar baby
After “Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby ,” an Uncle Remus story by Joel Chandler Harris in which Brer Fox makes a doll out of tar and Brer Rabbit gets stuck in it when he punches it after it does not return his greetingTHE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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MLA Style
"tar baby." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 14 January 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/tar-baby>.
APA Style
tar baby. (n.d.). Retrieved January 14th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/tar-baby
Noun
- (chiefly US) A difficult, abstract problem that worsens as one attempts to handle it.
Origin
From the tar baby used as a character in Joel Chandler Harris in his Uncle Remus stories, published 1881.
English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.
Link to this page
Cite this page
MLA Style
"tar baby." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 14 January 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/tar-baby>.
APA Style
tar baby. (n.d.). Retrieved January 14th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/tar-baby
