Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Hard fat obtained from parts of the bodies of cattle, sheep, or horses, and used in foodstuffs or to make candles, leather dressing, soap, and lubricants.
  • noun Any of various similar fats, such as those obtained from plants.
  • transitive verb To smear or cover with tallow.
  • transitive verb To fatten (animals) in order to obtain tallow.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To grease or smear with tallow.
  • To fatten; cause to have a large quantity of tallow: as, to tallow sheep.
  • noun The harder and less fusible fats melted and separated from the fibrous or membranous matter which is naturally mixed with them.
  • Pertaining to, consisting of, or resembling tallow: as, a tallow cake; a tallow dip.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To grease or smear with tallow.
  • transitive verb To cause to have a large quantity of tallow; to fatten.
  • noun The suet or fat of animals of the sheep and ox kinds, separated from membranous and fibrous matter by melting.
  • noun The fat of some other animals, or the fat obtained from certain plants, or from other sources, resembling the fat of animals of the sheep and ox kinds.
  • noun a candle made of tallow.
  • noun [Obs.] a keech.
  • noun one whose occupation is to make, or to sell, tallow candles.
  • noun the trade of a tallow chandler; also, the place where his business is carried on.
  • noun (Bot.) a tree (Stillingia sebifera) growing in China, the seeds of which are covered with a substance which resembles tallow and is applied to the same purposes.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a hard animal fat obtained from suet etc.; used to make candles, soap and lubricants
  • verb To grease or smear with tallow.
  • verb To cause to have a large quantity of tallow; to fatten.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun obtained from suet and used in making soap, candles and lubricants

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English talow.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English talgh, talow, from Old English taluh, talugh, from Proto-Germanic *talgō, *talgan (compare Dutch talk, German Talg), from Proto-Indo-European *del- (“flow”) (compare Middle Irish delt ("dew"), Old Armenian տեղ (teł, "heavy rain")).

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Examples

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  • Citation on tallow.

    June 30, 2008

  • Erm, citation on algal.

    July 1, 2008