Word.ws English Dictionary

Tartary

Tartary proper noun: a blanket term for the Eurasian Steppe, Central Asia, and Siberia. Also the obsolete form of Tartarus.

Proper noun

Tartary

  1. (archaic) A blanket term for the Eurasian Steppe, Central Asia, and Siberia.
  2. (archaic) Chinese Tartary; regions outside of China proper inhabited by non-Han Chinese populations.

Also used as

Tartary is also the obsolete form of Tartarus.

Forms of Tartary

alternative formTatary

Origin of Tartary

From Old French Tartarie, from Medieval Latin Tartaria (“land of the Tartars”), from Old Turkic 𐱃𐱃𐰺 (t¹t¹r¹) , spelling influenced by Latin Tartarus (“Hell (in Greek mythology)”), from Ancient Greek Τάρταρος (Tártaros).

From Old French Tartaire, from Latin Tartarus, from Ancient Greek Τάρταρος (Tártaros).

Words formed from Tartary

Phrases with Tartary

Words that rhyme with Tartary

Questions about Tartary

What does Tartary mean?
Tartary means a blanket term for the Eurasian Steppe, Central Asia, and Siberia.
What part of speech is Tartary?
Tartary is a proper noun.

Words near Tartary in the dictionary

  1. Tartarology
  2. tartarous
  3. tartars
  4. tartarum
  5. Tartarus
  6. Tartary
  7. tartaryn
  8. tartaryns
  9. tarte flambée
  10. tarte tatin
  11. tarted

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Tartary (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: “Tartary.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tartary. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.