tabby

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

• noun A rich watered silk.
• noun A fabric of plain weave.
• noun A domestic cat with a coat that has stripes or swirls of darker fur on a lighter background.
• noun A domestic cat, especially a female.
• noun A spinster.
• noun A prying woman; a gossip.
• noun South Atlantic US A mixture of oyster shells, lime, sand, and water used as a building material.
• adjective Having light and dark striped or swirled markings.
• adjective Made of or resembling watered silk.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A watered material.
• noun A worsted material, as a watered moreen.
• noun In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a silken stuff not necessarily watered.
• noun In entomology, a pyralid moth of the genus Aglossa: a British collectors' name. A. pinguinalis is the common tabby, also called grease-moth; A. cuprealis is the small tabby.
• Made of or resembling the fabric tabby; diversified in appearance or color like tabby.
• Performed as in making the plain material from which tabby is produced: said of weaving.
• To cause to look like tabby, or watered silk; give a wavy appearance to, as stuffs: as, to tabby silk, mohair, ribbon, etc. This is done by the use of a calender without water.
• noun A mixture of lime with shells, gravel, or stones in equal proportions, with an equal proportion of water, forming a mass which when dry becomes as hard as rock. This is used in Morocco as a substitute for bricks or stone in building.
• noun A tabby-cat.
• noun A female cat: distinguished from tom-cat
• noun An old maid; a spinster; hence, any spiteful female gossip or tattler.

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

• noun A kind of waved silk, usually called watered silk, manufactured like taffeta, but thicker and stronger. The watering is given to it by calendering.
• noun A mixture of lime with shells, gravel, or stones, in equal proportions, with an equal proportion of water. When dry, this becomes as hard as rock.
• noun A brindled cat; hence, popularly, any cat.
• noun colloq. An old maid or gossip.
• adjective Having a wavy or watered appearance.
• adjective Brindled; diversified in color.
• adjective (Zoöl.) the grease moth. See under Grease.
• transitive verb To water; to cause to look wavy, by the process of calendering; to calender

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

• noun uncountable A kind of waved silk, usually called watered silk, manufactured like taffeta, but thicker and stronger. The watering is given to it by calendering.
• noun uncountable A mixture of lime with shells, gravel, or stones, in equal proportions, with an equal proportion of water. When dry, this becomes as hard as rock.
• noun countable A brindled cat
• noun countable, archaic An old maid or gossip.
• adjective Having a wavy or watered appearance; as, a tabby waistcoat.
• adjective Brindled; diversified in color; as, a tabby cat.

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

• noun a cat with a grey or tawny coat mottled with black
• noun female cat
• adjective having a grey or brown streak or a pattern or a patchy coloring; used especially of the patterned fur of cats