Word.ws English Dictionary

tartans

Syllables: tar·tansUK/ˈtɑːt(ə)nz/US/ˈtɑɹtn̩z/

tartans noun: clothes made from tartan fabric; specifically, full Highland dress. Also the plural of tartan.

Noun

tartans pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) Clothes made from tartan fabric; specifically, full Highland dress.
    • [A] chief in Highland pride; / His shoulders bear the hunter's bow, / The mountain dirk adorns his side, / Far on the wind his tartans flow […]1798 (date written; published 1800), “Glenfinlas, or Lord Ronald’s Coronach”, in Walter Scott, editor, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: […], volume II, Kelso, Roxburghshire: […] James Ballantyne...
    • [T]hou shalt see a darksome man, / Who boasts him Chief of Alpine's clan, / With tartans broad and shadowy plume, / And hand of blood, and brow of gloom, […]1810, Walter Scott, “Canto IV. The Prophecy.”, in The Lady of the Lake; […], Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and William...

Also used as

tartans is also the plural of tartan.

tartans is also the third-person singular simple present indicative of tartan.

Origin of tartans

From tartan + -s (suffix forming pluralia tantum and plural forms of nouns; and third-person singular simple present indicative forms of regular verbs).

Questions about tartans

What does tartans mean?
Tartans means clothes made from tartan fabric; specifically, full Highland dress.
What part of speech is tartans?
Tartans is a noun.
How do you pronounce tartans?
Tartans is pronounced /ˈtɑːt(ə)nz/ (UK).

Words near tartans in the dictionary

  1. tartanized
  2. tartanizes
  3. tartanizing
  4. tartanned
  5. tartanry
  6. tartans
  7. tartar
  8. tartar emetic
  9. tartar sauce
  10. tartar sauces
  11. tartarated

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tartans (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:

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