tabby
/ˈtæb.i/
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
tabby (countable and uncountable, plural tabbies)
- A kind of waved silk, usually called watered silk, manufactured like taffeta, but thicker and stronger. The watering is given to it by calendering.
- "Ay, ay; she wore a flowered silk tabby sacque, on band days," said Toole, who had an eye and a corner in his memory for female costume, "a fine showy—I remember."1863, J[oseph] Sheridan Le Fanu, “Showing how Poor Mrs. Macnamara Was Troubled and Haunted Too, and Opening a Budget of Gossip”, in The House by the Church-yard. […], volume I, London: Tinsley...
- 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.
- A brindled cat.
- A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 5]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC
- A 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
- An old maid or gossip.
- Synonyms:
- old woman
Adjective
tabby (comparative tabbier, superlative tabbiest)
- Having a wavy or watered appearance.
- a tabby waistcoat
- Brindled; diversified in color.
- a tabby cat
Verb
tabby (third-person singular simple present tabbies, present participle tabbying, simple past and past participle tabbied)
- To give a wavy or watered appearance to (a textile).
Proper noun capitalized: Tabby
Tabby
- A diminutive of the female given name Tabitha.
- A diminutive of the female given name Tabetha.
tabby meaning in Arabic, Indonesian and Thai
tabby in Arabic
- cat
- عَتَّابِي ʕattābī
- brindled
- عَتَّابِي ʕattābī
tabby in Indonesian
- cat
- kucing mujair, kucing tabi
- brindled
- lorek, berjalur
tabby in Thai
- cat
- แมวลายสลิด mɛɛo-laai-sà-lìt
Examples of tabby in a sentence
- A blue silver tabby has paw pads and nose leather to be dark blue to slate grey.
- No self-respecting tabby with a two-grand bolt hole is going to back-squirt in some 10-buck plastic pan from Walmart.
- Orange cats, sometimes called ginger, may be tabby or nontabby.
Synonyms of tabby
Forms of tabby
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | tabbies |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | tabbier |
| superlative | tabbiest |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | tabbies |
| present participle | tabbying |
| past participle | tabbied |
| past | tabbied |
Origin of tabby
Mid 17th century French tabis, from Arabic عَتَّابِيّ (ʕattābiyy), ultimately from Arabic الْعَتَّابِيَّة (al-ʕattābiyya), a quarter of Baghdad (named for a Prince عَتَّاب (ʕattāb)) which is associated with the manufacture of a certain type of waved silk. See also taffeta, another type of silk whose name derives from the Persian تافته (tâfta, “woven cloth”) and shares a similar etymological origin.
Diminutive + -y.
Words formed from tabby
Phrases with tabby
Words that rhyme with tabby
Questions about tabby
- 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.
- What is tabby in Arabic?
- Tabby in Arabic is عَتَّابِي (ʕattābī). See Tabby meaning in Arabic.
- What part of speech is tabby?
- Tabby can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce tabby?
- Tabby is pronounced /ˈtæb.i/.
- What is the plural of tabby?
- The plural of tabby is tabbies.
Words near tabby in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tabby (page history and authors); Tabby (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tabby.wav.
Cite this entry: “tabby.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tabby. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.