tack
English
editPronunciation
edit- (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA(key): /tæk/
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -æk
Etymology 1
editFrom Middle English tak, takke (“hook; staple; nail”), from Old Northern French taque (“nail, pin, peg”), from Frankish *takkō, from Proto-Germanic *takkô (“tip; point; protrusion; prong; tine; jag; spike; twig”), of unknown origin, but possibly from Proto-Indo-European *dHgʰ-n-, from the root *déHgʰ- (“to pinch; to tear, rip, fray”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Takke (“bough; branch; twig”), West Frisian takke (“branch”), tûk (“branch, smart, sharp”), Dutch tak (“twig; branch; limb”), German Zacke (“jag; prong; spike; tooth; peak”).
Alternative forms
editNoun
edittack (countable and uncountable, plural tacks)
- A small nail with a flat head.
- Hyponym: thumbtack
- 2012 July 15, Richard Williams, “Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot put Bradley Wiggins off track”, in The Guardian[1]:
- A tough test for even the strongest climber, it was new to the Tour de France this year, but its debut will be remembered for the wrong reasons after one of those spectators scattered carpet tacks on the road and induced around 30 punctures among the group of riders including Bradley Wiggins, the Tour's overall leader, and his chief rivals.
- A thumbtack.
- Coordinate term: pushpin
- (sewing) A loose seam used to temporarily fasten pieces of cloth.
- (nautical) The lower corner on the leading edge of a sail relative to the direction of the wind.
- (nautical) A course or heading that enables a sailing vessel to head upwind.
- (figurative) A direction or course of action, especially a new one; a method or approach to solving a problem.
- 1612, Michael Drayton, chapter 11, in [John Selden], editor, Poly-Olbion. Or A Chorographicall Description of Tracts, Riuers, Mountaines, Forests, and Other Parts of this Renowned Isle of Great Britaine, […], London: […] H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes; I[ohn] Browne; I[ohn] Helme; I[ohn] Busbie, published 1613, →OCLC:
- So stoutly held to tack by those near North-wales men;
- 1922 February, James Joyce, “[V]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
- Maud Gonne’s letter about taking them off O’Connell street at night: disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith’s paper is on the same tack now: an army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or halfseasover empire.
- 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 637:
- I thought that my refusing Barnard would alienate Botha, and decided that such a tack was too risky.
- 2016 June 19, Mary Dejevsky, “Isolating Russia isn’t working. The west needs a new approach”, in The Guardian[2]:
- When even cautious German politicians are questioning Nato’s ‘war-mongering’ actions, it’s clear that a new tack is required
- (nautical) The maneuver by which a sailing vessel turns its bow through the wind so that the wind changes from one side to the other.
- (nautical) The distance a sailing vessel runs between these maneuvers when working to windward; a board.
- (nautical) A rope used to hold in place the foremost lower corners of the courses when the vessel is close-hauled; also, a rope employed to pull the lower corner of a studding sail to the boom.
- Any of the various equipment and accessories worn by horses in the course of their use as domesticated animals.
- (manufacturing, construction, chemistry) The stickiness of a compound, related to its cohesive and adhesive properties.
- The laminate adhesive has very aggressive tack and is hard to move once in place.
- 1959, E. A. Apps, Printing Ink Technology, page 415:
- Letterpress and offset gloss varnishes normally have viscosities varying from 50 to 250 poises; they must stain the paper as little as possible, have insufficient tack to cause plucking, […]
- Food generally; fare, especially of the bread kind.
- 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:
- But if a woman's got nothing but her fair fame to feed on, why, it's thin tack, and a donkey would die of it!
- That which is attached; a supplement; an appendix.
- 1724, [Gilbert] Burnet, edited by [Gilbert Burnet Jr.], Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Thomas Ward […], →OCLC:
- Some tacks had been made to money bills in King Charles's time.
- 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
- pay all taxes and subscribe tacks
- (obsolete) Confidence; reliance.
- 1651-1666, Joseph Caryl, Exposition of Job with Practical Observations:
- He should find […] that there was tack in it, that it was solid silver, or silver that had strength in it.
Synonyms
edit- (nautical maneuver): coming about
Derived terms
editTranslations
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Etymology 2
editFrom Middle English takken (“to attach; nail”), from the noun (see above).
Verb
edittack (third-person singular simple present tacks, present participle tacking, simple past and past participle tacked)
- (transitive) To nail (something) with a tack (small nail with a flat head).
- To sew/stitch with a tack (loose seam used to temporarily fasten pieces of cloth).
- To weld with initial small welds to temporarily fasten in preparation for full welding.
- Synonym: tack weld
- (nautical) To maneuver a sailing vessel so that its bow turns through the wind, i.e. the wind changes from one side of the vessel to the other.
- Synonym: change tack
- Antonym: wear
- Coordinate term: sail close to the wind
- (intransitive, nautical) To sail to windward using a series of alternate tacks across the wind.
- To add something as an extra item.
- to tack (something) onto (something)
- 2012, James Lambert, “Beyond Hobson-Jobson: A new lexicography for Indian English”, in World Englishes[3], page 312:
- In short, they tend to present Indian English as nothing more than "standard" English with a select collection of lexical peculiarities tacked on, as it were, many of which would be regarded as "errors" by prescriptivist language scholars.
- Synonym of tack up (“to prepare a horse for riding by equipping it with a tack”).
- (slang, obsolete) To join in wedlock.
Derived terms
editRelated terms
editTranslations
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
See also
edit- Tack (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- Blu-Tack
Etymology 3
editFrom an old or dialectal form of French tache. See techy. Doublet of tache.
Noun
edittack (plural tacks)
References
edit- (en, flavour or taint): 1893, Joseph Wright, The English dialect dictionary (page 4)
- (en, flavour or taint): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary
Etymology 4
editBack-formation from tacky.
Noun
edittack (uncountable)
- (colloquial) That which is tacky; something cheap and gaudy.
- 2014, David Leffman, The Rough Guide to China:
- For souvenirs – mostly outright tack and ethnicky textiles – try your bargaining skills at the shops and stalls on Binjiang Luand Zhengyang Jie, or the nightly street market spreading for about a block either side of Shanhu Bridge along Zhongshan Lu.
Etymology 5
editFrom Middle English tak, take (“fee, tax (on livestock)”), from Old Norse tak, taka (“a taking, seizure; revenue”), from Old Norse taka (“to take”). Cognate with Scots tack.
Noun
edittack (plural tacks)
- (law, Scotland and Northern England) A contract by which the use of a thing is set, or let, for hire; a lease.
- 1885, Lord Colin Campbell, The Crofter in History:
- In the Breadalbane papers, for example, there is a "tack" which was given by Sir John Campbell of Glenurchy to his "weil belouit" servant John M'Conoquhy V'Gregour, in the year 1530.
See also
editReferences
edit- “tack”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “tack”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Anagrams
editScots
editAlternative forms
editEtymology
editFrom Middle English tak, take, from Old Norse tak, taka (“a taking, revenue”).
Noun
edittack (plural tacks)
Swedish
editEtymology
editFrom Old Swedish þak, from Runic Swedish þakk, from Old Norse þǫkk, from Proto-Germanic *þankō, *þankaz. Cognates include English thank, German Dank, Danish tak and Norwegian Nynorsk takk/Norwegian Bokmål takk.
Pronunciation
editInterjection
edittack
- thanks, thank you
- Synonym: (emphatic) tack snälla (“thank you so much”)
- – Här är grejen du frågade efter. – Tack!
- – Here's the thing you asked for. – Thank you!
- Tack för hjälpen!
- Thanks for the help! / Thanks for helping me out!
- Tack för att du hämtade ungarna!
- Thanks for picking up the kids!
- Tack för skjutsen!
- Thanks for the ride!
- Tack för att vi fick komma
- Thank you for having us ("Thank you for that we were-allowed-to come")
- please (to add politeness)
- Synonym: (in polite requests) är du snäll
- Vi skulle vilja beställa, tack
- We would like to order, please
- Det blir hundra kronor, tack
- That will be one hundred kronor, please
- Stå inte där, tack / är du snäll. Du är i vägen.
- Don't stand there, please. You are in the way. (possibly somewhat rude still, like in English – "Ursäkta, skulle du kunna flytta dig lite så att vi kan komma förbi" (Excuse me, could you ["would you be able to," literally] move over a bit so we can get past) is politer)
Usage notes
edit- Like in English, another way to add politeness is to turn requests into possibilities (the more remote, the politer). See skola for examples.
- A pleading please (like, "Please, don't do it!") is snälla.
Derived terms
edit- ja tack
- nej tack
- tack för mig
- tack så mycket
- tack vare
- tacksam (“grateful”)
Related terms
editNoun
edittack n
- a thank you, a thanks (phrase or gesture that expresses gratitude)
- Du ska ha ett stort tack för allt du gjort för oss!
- Thank you very much for all you have done for us! ("You shall have a big thank you for everything you have done for us!")
- Inte ens ett tack fick vi ("Vi fick inte ens ett tack" also works. Putting "inte ens ett tack" (not even a thank you) first emphasizes it.)
- We didn't even get a thank you
Declension
editDeclension of tack | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | |||
Indefinite | Definite | Indefinite | Definite | |
Nominative | tack | tacket | tack | tacken |
Genitive | tacks | tackets | tacks | tackens |
Derived terms
editSee also
edit- förlåt (“I'm sorry”)
- hygglig
- hygglo
- schysst
- skola (for other ways to make expressions polite)
- snälla (“please (when pleading)”)
- tack och bock
- tackar och bockar
- ursäkta (“excuse me”)
- är du snäll
References
edit- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/æk
- Rhymes:English/æk/1 syllable
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old Northern French
- English terms derived from Frankish
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- en:Sewing
- en:Nautical
- en:Manufacturing
- en:Construction
- en:Chemistry
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- English terms with collocations
- English slang
- English terms derived from French
- English doublets
- English back-formations
- English colloquialisms
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *teh₂g- (touch)
- English terms derived from Old Norse
- en:Law
- Scottish English
- Northern England English
- Scots terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- Scots terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *teh₂g- (touch)
- Scots terms inherited from Middle English
- Scots terms derived from Middle English
- Scots terms derived from Old Norse
- Scots lemmas
- Scots nouns
- Swedish terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- Swedish terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *teng- (think)
- Swedish terms inherited from Old Swedish
- Swedish terms derived from Old Swedish
- Swedish terms derived from Old Norse
- Swedish terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- Swedish terms with IPA pronunciation
- Swedish terms with audio links
- Swedish lemmas
- Swedish interjections
- Swedish terms with usage examples
- Swedish nouns
- Swedish neuter nouns