Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun plural Turpentine.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A workmen's name for the oil or spirit of turpentine.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun informal
Turpentine or turpentinesubstitute . - noun slang, Australia, New Zealand Any
alcoholic drink.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun volatile liquid distilled from turpentine oleoresin; used as paint thinner and solvent and medicinally
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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She could smell a chemical which a colleague described as turps.
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Paul Vale 2012
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In very severe cases I have used turpentine ( "turps") with excellent effect; in fact, as a destructive agent for insects, I prefer it to benzoline, having now mastered the hitherto fatal objections to its use on birds 'skins.
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"Quelle langue! quelle _langue est la langue_ Américaine!" sniffed the elder Swede, wiping off a brushful of "turps" in her back hair.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. Various
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When the wax is sufficiently cold, which it will be in a quarter of an hour after finishing, commence colouring, by using the colours direct from the tubes, with as little admixture of "turps" as possible.
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a wee chatty with our hosty in his comfy estably over the old middlesex party and his moral turps, meaning flu, pock, pox and mizzles, grip, gripe, gleet and sprue, caries, rabies, numps and dumps.
Finnegans Wake 2006
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Sturdy, honest, economical and, I've discovered, not nearly as drying as soaps were back in the day, when they could have stood in for turps.
Beauty: Soap 2011
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Oh no, you'll always get your turps topped up Chez Small Talk, Lawro.
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I don't have a problem with Taruskin's article, mainly because he approvingly quotes a jokey comment I made on a Sequenza21 post after a night on the turps, which I couldn't remember writing even after I googled it.
The censures of the carping world Matthew Guerrieri 2007
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As for the drinking parts, well JB is a gentleman on his turps.
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I'm using all Walnut oil no turps to go easy on my lungs, but it's frustrating...
Empire william wray 2009
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