Word.ws English Dictionary

tar and feather

tar and feather verb: to cover (a person) in sticky tar, then cover in feathers which stick to the tar; an archaic means of humiliating a person.

Verb

tar and feather (third-person singular simple present tars and feathers, present participle tarring and feathering, simple past and past participle tarred and feathered)

  1. (transitive) To cover (a person) in sticky tar, then cover in feathers which stick to the tar; an archaic means of humiliating a person.
    • 1855 — George A. Smith, Journal of Discourses, Volume 3 "Preaching the Gospel"
      "O," say they, "if you talk with a Mormon Elder, you are sure to get worsted; tar and feather them, mob them, and stone them out of the country, for if you listen to them, you will be deceived."
    • ...they'd be along pretty soon and give me 'bout half an hour's start, and then run me down if they could; and if they got me they'd tar and feather me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfast—I warn't hungry.1884, Mark Twain, chapter XIX, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Forms of tar and feather

third-person singular presenttars and feathers
present participletarring and feathering
past participletarred and feathered
pasttarred and feathered
alternative formtar-and-feather

Questions about tar and feather

What does tar and feather mean?
Tar and feather means to cover (a person) in sticky tar, then cover in feathers which stick to the tar; an archaic means of humiliating a person.
What part of speech is tar and feather?
Tar and feather is a verb.
What is the past tense of tar and feather?
The past tense of tar and feather is tarred and feathered.

Words near tar and feather in the dictionary

  1. taquito
  2. taquitos
  3. taqwa
  4. taqwacore
  5. tar
  6. tar and feather
  7. tar apple
  8. tar apples
  9. tar babies
  10. tar baby
  11. tar boil

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tar and feather (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-tar and feather.wav.

Cite this entry: “tar and feather.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tar_and_feather. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.