How to use tabby in a sentence

11 example sentences · noun, adjective, verb

Tabby means a kind of waved silk, usually called watered silk, manufactured like taffeta, but thicker and stronger. The watering is given to it by calendering. Example: “A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill.”

Examples of tabby by meaning

nounA brindled cat.

A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 5]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

nounA woman, irrespective of age, but often used for a young, attractive woman.

‘The kids go for a drive in a borrowed car, park on another street between the corner lamps, and then there’s ructions because some little tabby gets up the stick.’1982, Paul Radley, My Blue-Checker Corker and Me, Sydney: Fontana/Collins, page 76

adjectiveHaving a wavy or watered appearance.

a tabby waistcoat

adjectiveBrindled; diversified in color.

a tabby cat

More sentences with tabby

A blue silver tabby has paw pads and nose leather to be dark blue to slate grey.2009, Elektra Hammond, Bengals Illustrated: The Christmas issue, October-December 2009. From the entry nose leather
No self-respecting tabby with a two-grand bolt hole is going to back-squirt in some 10-buck plastic pan from Walmart.2019 January 5, Rex Murphy, “Much show, null impact: How the Liberal carbon tax is not unlike that $2,000 cat door”, in National Post…. From the entry Robert's your uncle
Orange cats, sometimes called ginger, may be tabby or nontabby.1984, William Darrach Halsey, Emanuel Friedman, Collier's encyclopedia: with bibliography and index, Volume 5. From the entry nontabby
Selection on nontabby segregants from tabby selection lines.1984, Sewall Wright, Evolution and the Genetics of Populations, Volume 3. From the entry nontabby
I make the jaunt to Wrigleyville and surprise the women at 10:00 a.m. with a dozen donuts, café mochas and a malnourished tabby cat.2014, Mary Kubica, “Gabe: After”, in The Good Girl, Toronto, Ont.: MIRA Books, →ISBN, page 281. From the entry café mocha
His first magical creature was a bonsai tiger called Jack (of the tabby variety), followed by a small luck dragon named Daisy.2009 March 1, Sam Bowring, The Zoo of Magical and Mythological Creatures, Macmillan, preface. From the entry luck dragon
That kim up to the station I wus at; A boshter tabby, not too thin ner fat, En watto fer a hottie — ut the start.1956, Louis Lavater, The Sonnet in Australasia, a Survey and Selection., page 12. From the entry boshter

Meaning of tabby

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 concrete 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.

Full definition of tabby

Questions about tabby in a sentence

How do you use tabby in a sentence?: Tabby is used as a noun, adjective and verb. For example: “A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill.”
What is a short sentence with tabby?: “a tabby cat”
What does tabby mean?: Tabby means a kind of waved silk, usually called watered silk, manufactured like taffeta, but thicker and stronger. The watering is given to it by calendering.

Adapted from Wiktionary: tabby (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use tabby in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/tabby. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.