TABBY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Tabby

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/tˈæbi/ Listen

noun

Tabby n. (pl. tabbies)

A kind of waved silk, usually called watered silk, manufactured like taffeta, but thicker and stronger. The watering is given to it by calendering.

A mixture of lime with shells, gravel, or stones, in equal proportions, with an equal proportion of water. When dry, this becomes as hard as rock.

A brindled cat; hence, popularly, any cat.

An old maid or gossip. (Colloq.)

verb

Tabby v. t. (past & past part. tabbied; pres. part. tabbying) To water; to cause to look wavy, by the process of calendering; to calender; as, to tabby silk, mohair, ribbon, etc.

adjective

Tabby adj.

Having a wavy or watered appearance; as, a tabby waistcoat.

Brindled; diversified in color; as, a tabby cat.

Tabby moth (Zool.), the grease moth. See under Grease.

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Etymology of 'Tabby'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tabby" Quotes from Famous Books

... gold-embroidered waistcoats and plush breeches and new-powdered wigs, leaned on the tombstones, and exchanged snuffmulls and gossip. In the old ramshackle graveyard you would see such a parade of satin bodices and tabby petticoats and lace headgear as made it blossom like the rose. I went to church one Sunday in my second summer, and, being late, went up the aisle looking for a place. The men at the seat-ends would ...

— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... sideways at the window, dreamily stroking a tabby kitten, who, purring and blinking, nestled on her lap, and with great satisfaction held up her little nose into the rather hot spring sunshine. Olga Ivanovna was wearing a white morning gown, with short sleeves; her bare, pale-pink, girlish shoulders and ...

— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... of real estate that his frugality had enabled him to accumulate. The passing of the flood left him low and dry. One month after his dishabilitation a saloon-keeper plucked him by the neck from his free-lunch counter as a tabby plucks a strange kitten from her nest, and cast him asphaltward. This seems low enough. But after that he acquired a pair of cloth top, button Congress gaiters and wrote complaining letters to the newspapers. And then he ...

— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... settling herself more snugly by the fire. "Suppose it were our fire?" she smiled. "There would be a dog lying across that rug, and a comfortable Angora tabby dozing by the fender, and—you, cross-legged, at my feet, with that fascinating head of yours tipped ...

— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... feet. There were four chimneys and sixteen fireplaces, and twenty rooms above the first floor. The walls at the base were six feet in thickness, and above the ground four feet. They were composed of the material known as "tabby," a mixture of shells, lime and broken stone or gravel with water; which mass, being pressed in a mould of boards, becomes when dry as hard and durable as rock. The walls are now as solid as stone ...

— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

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