Monday Word: Tabby
Jun. 8th, 2026 06:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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1word1daytabby [tab-ee]
noun
1. a cat with a striped or brindled coat.
2. a domestic cat, especially a female one.
3. a spinster.
4. a spiteful female gossip or tattler.
5. plain weave.
6. a watered silk fabric, or any other watered material, as moreen
7. (in the southeastern United States) a building material composed of ground oyster shells, lime, and sand, mixed with salt water.
examples
1. Quash had begun rebuilding some of the dwellings with a new building substance we'd heard about named "tabby." Similar to daub, it was combined with oyster shells to give it more heft and consistency. The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd.
2. 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. Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, August 1880
origin
Gullah tabi, ultimately from Spanish tapia adobe wall
Tabby cabins of enslaved people, Kingsley Plantation, Fort George Island, Florida. [Jola Idowu]
noun
1. a cat with a striped or brindled coat.
2. a domestic cat, especially a female one.
3. a spinster.
4. a spiteful female gossip or tattler.
5. plain weave.
6. a watered silk fabric, or any other watered material, as moreen
7. (in the southeastern United States) a building material composed of ground oyster shells, lime, and sand, mixed with salt water.
examples
1. Quash had begun rebuilding some of the dwellings with a new building substance we'd heard about named "tabby." Similar to daub, it was combined with oyster shells to give it more heft and consistency. The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd.
2. 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. Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, August 1880
origin
Gullah tabi, ultimately from Spanish tapia adobe wall
Tabby cabins of enslaved people, Kingsley Plantation, Fort George Island, Florida. [Jola Idowu]
(no subject)
Date: 2026-06-08 07:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2026-06-08 07:56 pm (UTC)“Tiger cat”, particularly for orange cats, is a variant, but that’s come to denote domestic cats selectively bred to mimic big cat patterning.
(no subject)
Date: 2026-06-09 08:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2026-06-08 09:11 pm (UTC)I posted this word because of the last definition (#7) which I came across in a book and was unfamiliar with.
(no subject)
Date: 2026-06-09 11:17 am (UTC)I wondered because I know that cats have different names in the US e.g. tortoiseshell cats in the UK are called calico cats in the US I think?