Chapter TAPTEE R to TATTOO of T by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

TAPTEE R to TATTOO

TAPTEE R., n.p. Tapti; also called Tapi, [Skt. Tapi, ‘that which is hot’]. The river that runs by the city of Surat.

[1538.—“Tapi.” See under GODAVERY.]

c. 1630.—“Surat is…watered with a sweet River named Tappee (or Tindy), as broad as the Thames at Windsor.”—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1638, p. 36.

1813.—“The sacred groves of Pulparra are the general resort for all the Yogees (Jogee), Senassees (Sunyasee), and Hindoo pilgrims…the whole district is holy, and the Tappee in that part has more than common sanctity.”—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 286; [2nd ed. i. 184, and compare i. 176].

„ “Tappee or Tapty.”—Ibid. 244; [2nd ed. i. 146].

TARA, TARE, s. The name of a small silver coin current in S. India at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese. It seems to have survived longest in Calicut. The origin we have not traced. It is curious that the commonest silver coin in Sicily down to 1860, and worth about 4½d., was a tari, generally considered to be a corruption of dirhem. I see Sir Walter Elliot has mooted this very question in his Coins of S. India (p. 138). [The word is certainly Malayal. taram, defined in the Madras Gloss. as “a copper coin, value 1½ pies.” Mr. Gray in his note to the passage from Pyrard de Laval quoted below, suggests that it took its name from tara, ‘a star.’]

1442.—“They cast (at Vijayanagar), in pure silver a coin which is the sixth of the fanom, which they call tar.”—Abdurrazzak, in India in the XV. Cent. 26.

1506.—(The Viceroy, D. Francisco D’Almeida, wintering his fleet in Cochin). “As the people were numerous they made quite a big town with a number of houses covered with upper stories of timber, and streets also where the people of the country set up their stalls in which they sold plenty of victuals, and cheap. Thus for a vinten of silver you got in change 20 silver coins that they called taras, something like the scale of a sardine, and for such coin they gave you 12 or 15 figs, or 4 or 5 eggs, and for a single vintem 3 or 4 fowls, and for one tara fish enough to fill two men’s bellies, or rice enough for a day’s victuals, dinner and supper too. Bread there was none, for there was no wheat except in the territory of the Moors.”—Correa, i. 624.

1510.—The King of Narsinga (or Vijayanagar) “coins a silver money called tare, and others of gold, twenty of which go to a pardao, and are called fanom. And of these small ones of silver, there go 16 to a fanom.”—Varthema, 130.

[c. 1610.—“Each man receives four tarents, which are small silver coins, each of the value of one- sixteenth of a larin.”—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 344. Later on (i. 412) he says “16 tarens go to a Phanan”].

1673.—(at Calicut). “Their coin admits no Copper; Silver Tarrs, 28 of which make a Fanam, passing instead thereof.”—Fryer, 55.

„ “Calicut.

* * * * *

“Tarrs are the peculiar Coin, the rest are common to India.”—Ibid. 207.

1727.—“Calecut…coins are 10 Tar to a Fanam, 4½ Fanams to a Rupee.”—A. Hamilton, ii. 316; [ed. 1744].

[1737.—“We are to allow each man 4 measures of rice and 1 tar per diem.”—Agreement in Logan, Malabar, iii. 95, and see “tarrs” in iii. 192. Mr. Logan (vol. iii. Gloss. s.v.) defines the tara as equal to 2 pies.]

TARE AND TRET. Whence comes this odd firm in the books of arithmetic? Both partners apparently through Italy. The first Fr. tare, It. tara, from Ar. taraha, ‘to reject,’ as pointed out by Dozy. Tret is alleged to be from It. tritare, ‘to crumble or grind,’ perhaps rather from trito, ‘ground or triturated.’ [Prof. Skeat (Concise Dict. s.v.) derives it from Fr. traite, ‘a draught,’ and that from Lat. tractus, trahere, ‘to draw.’]

TAREGA, s. This represents a word for a broker (or person analogous to the hong merchants of Canton in former days) in Pegu, in the days of its prosperity. The word is from S. India. We have in Tel. taraga, ‘the occupation of a broker’; Tam. taragari, ‘a broker.’

1568.—“Sono in Pegu otto sensari del Re che si chiamano Tarege li quali sono obligati di far vendere tutte le mercantie…per il prezzo corrente.”—Ces. Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 395.

1583.—“…e se fosse alcuno che a tempo del pagamento per non pagar si absentasse dalla città, o si ascondesse, il Tarrecà e obligato pagar per lui…i Tarrecà cosi si demandano i sensari.”—G. Balbi, f. 107v, 108.

1587.—“There are in Pegu eight Brokers, whom they call Tareghe, which are bound to sell your goods at the price they be Woorth,