Etymology Dictionary

TARTAR (1),  an acid salt which forms on the sides of casks containing wine; a concretion which forms on the teeth.  (F.,—Low Lat.,—Arab.)   This is one of the terms due to the alchemists.   Called sal tartre in Chaucer, C. T. 16278; and simply tartre, id. 16281.—F. tartre, 'tartar, or argall, the lees or dregs that stick to the sides of wine-vessels, hard and dry like a crust;' Cot.—Low Lat. tartarum (whence the mod. E. spelling tartar).—Arab. durd, 'dregs, sediment, the tartar of wine, the mother of oil;' Rich. Dict. p. 662; where it is marked as a Pers. word, though, according to Devic, of Arab. origin.   Rich. also gives Pers. durdí, Arab. durdíy, 'sediment, dregs;' p. 663.   Also Arab. darad, a shedding of the teeth, dardá, a toothless woman; which Devic explains with reference to the tartar on teeth.   Der. tartar-ic, tartar-ous.

TARTAR (2),  a native of Tartary.  (Tartar).   Chiefly used in the phr. 'to catch a Tartar,' to be caught in one's own trap.   'The phrase is prob. owing to some particular story;' Todd's Johnson, with the following quotation.   'In this defeat they lost about 5000 men, besides those that were taken prisoners:—so that, instead of catching the Tartar, they were catched themselves;' Life of the Duke of Tyrconnel, 1689.   'Tartar, a native of Tartary,... the people of which are of a savage disposition:  whence the proverbial expression to catch a Tartar, i.e. to meet with one's match, to be disappointed, balked, or cowed;' Phillips, ed. 1706.   Shak. has 'the Tartar's bow,' Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 101.   Sir J. Mandeville professed to have travelled in Tartarye; see prol. to his Travels.   See Trench, Eng. Past and Present, where he explains that the true spelling is Tatar, but the spelling Tartar was adopted from a false etymology, because their multitudes were supposed to have proceeded out of Tartarus or hell.—Pers. Tátár, 'a Tartar, or Scythian;' Rich. Dict. p. 351; a word of Tatar origin.

TARTAR (3),  Tartarus, hell.  (L.,—Gk.)   'To the gates of Tartar;' Tw. Nt. ii. 5. 225.—Lat. Tartarus.—Gk. Τάρταρος, Tartarus, the infernal regions; apparently conceived to be a place of extreme cold.  Cf. Gk. ταρταρίζειν, to shiver with cold.   Der. tartar-e-ous, 'the black tartareous cold;' Milton, P. L. vii. 238; tartar-e-an, id. ii. 69.