Word.ws English Dictionary

tar water

tar water noun: a cold infusion of tar in water, once used as a medicine for chest complaints.

Noun

tar water (countable and uncountable, plural tar waters)

  1. (historical) A cold infusion of tar in water, once used as a medicine for chest complaints.
    • Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness.1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter II, in Great Expectations […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 22

Forms of tar water

pluraltar waters
alternative formtar-water

Questions about tar water

What does tar water mean?
Tar water means a cold infusion of tar in water, once used as a medicine for chest complaints.
What part of speech is tar water?
Tar water is a noun.
What is the plural of tar water?
The plural of tar water is tar waters.

Words near tar water in the dictionary

  1. tar pits
  2. tar sand
  3. tar sands
  4. tar spot
  5. TAR syndrome
  6. tar water
  7. tar waters
  8. tar with the same brush
  9. tar with the same stick
  10. tar'd
  11. tar-and-feather

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tar water (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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