tan
/tæn/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.01 in modern English
3
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The bark of an oak or other tree from which tannic acid is obtained.
adj
Yellowish-brown.
Example Sentences
- "She still has a tan from her vacation in Mexico."
- "I'm hoping to get a tan this weekend at the beach."
- "In two pints of water boil one ounce of tan, and a like portion of nutgall till reduced to a pint."
- "a tan suit"
- "Mine is the white car parked next to the tan pickup truck."
- "The history of suits in politics is long and storied: from Obama’s “shocking” tan suit, now infamous enough to have its own Wikipedia page, […]."
Etymology
From Middle English tan, from Old French tan (“tanbark”), from Gaulish *tannos (“green oak”) – compare Breton tann (“red oak”), Old Cornish tannen –, from Proto-Celtic *tannos (“green oak”), of uncertain origin, but perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *(s)dʰonu (“fir”). Per this hypothesis, related to Hittite [script needed] (tanau, “fir”), Latin femur, genitive feminis (“thigh”), German Tann (“woods”), Tanne (“fir”), Albanian thanë (“cranberry bush”), Ancient Greek θάμνος (thámnos, “thicket”), Avestan 𐬚𐬀𐬥𐬎𐬎𐬀𐬭𐬆 (θanuuar^ə), Sanskrit धनु (dhánu).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: tan, *tannos, *dʰonu, tannen, tannian, tannare
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /tæn/
- British English: /tæn/