What does "tarpaulin" mean?
Tarpaulin: A hat made of, or covered with, painted or tarred cloth, worn by sailors and others.
Additional senses
- 2.Hence, a sailor; a seaman; a tar. To a landsman, these tarpaulins, as they were called, seemed a strange and half-savage race. Macaulay.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
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- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00