tattoo

pronunciation

How to pronounce tattoo in British English: UK [təˈtuː] word uk audio image

How to pronounce tattoo in American English: US [tæˈtuː] word us audio image

Noun:

a drumbeat or bugle call that signals the military to return to their quarters
a design on the skin made by tattooing
the practice of making a design on the skin by pricking and staining
Verb:

stain (skin) with indelible color

Word Origin

tattoo: tattoo: English has two words tattoo. The older, ‘military display’ [17], was borrowed from a Dutch word, taptoe, that means literally ‘tap to’, that is, ‘shut the tap’ – a signal to shut off the taps of the beer barrels at closing time in the taverns. By the time it reached English it was being used for a ‘drum beat signalling the time for soldiers to return to their quarters at night’, and in the 18th century it was applied to a ‘military display based on this’. The tattoo on the skin [18] was borrowed from a Polynesian language, such as Tahitian (tatau) or Marquesan (ta-tu).=> tap

tattoo (v.): "mark the skin with pigment," 1769, tattow, from tattoo (n.2). Related: Tattooed; tattooing. Thackeray has tattooage.

tattoo (n.1): "signal calling soldiers or sailors to quarters at night," 1680s, earlier tap-to (1640s), from Dutch taptoe, from tap "faucet of a cask" (see tap (n.1)) + toe "shut, to," from Proto-Germanic *to (see to (prep.)). "So called because police formerly visited taverns in the evening to shut off the taps of casks" [Barnhart]. In 17c. Dutch the phrase apparently was used with a transferred or figurative sense "say no more." In English, transferred sense of "drumbeat" is recorded from 1755. Hence, Devil's tattoo "action of idly drumming fingers in irritation or impatience" (1803).

tattoo (n.2): "pigment design in skin," 1769 (noun and verb, both first attested in writing of Capt. Cook), from a Polynesian noun (such as Tahitian and Samoan tatau, Marquesan tatu "puncture, mark made on skin"). Century Dictionary (1902) describes them as found on sailors and uncivilized people or as a sentence of punishment.