tallow
Americannoun
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the fatty tissue or suet of animals.
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the harder fat of sheep, cattle, etc., separated by melting from the fibrous and membranous matter naturally mixed with it, and used to make candles, soap, etc.
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any of various similar fatty substances.
vegetable tallow.
verb (used with object)
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tallows,
present (3rd person singular)
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tallowed,
past participle, past
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tallowing
present participle
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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tallowsimple
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tallowssimple
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have tallowedperfect
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has tallowedperfect
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am tallowingprogressive
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are tallowingprogressive
-
is tallowingprogressive
-
have been tallowingperfect progressive
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has been tallowingperfect progressive
Past
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tallowedsimple
-
had tallowedperfect
-
was tallowingprogressive
-
were tallowingprogressive
-
had been tallowingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of tallow
1300–50; Middle English talow, talgh; cognate with German Talg
Explanation
In the old days, candles were mostly made from tallow, a form of animal fat that provided an inexpensive way for people to light their homes at night. Tallow is rendered animal fat, most often from beef or mutton. It's similar to suet or lard, other forms of animal fat, and has been useful in various ways through the years because it doesn't go bad at room temperature, stays solid, and is cheap. Today it's most commonly used for soap making or animal feed, though it can also be used in making biodiesel fuel.
Vocabulary lists containing tallow
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Crispin: The Cross of Lead
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Old Yeller
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Each blended its tallow with additional ingredients — jojoba oil being the most significant.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026
The enriched flour, high-fructose corn syrup, and tallow that help make up the American classic give each small sponge cake about 65 days to be consumed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
The Make America Healthy Again movement, for which Kennedy is the de facto leader, promotes a diet heavy in meat and animal products, such as butter, beef tallow and raw milk.
From MarketWatch ● May 19, 2026
“Give me beef tallow and six raw eggs, too.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 15, 2026
I lit the tallow candle and we went over everything, and each invention he viewed with a shout.
From "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
I applied beef and bison tallows from three companies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026
It often happens, especially with the tallows, that a dark colored sample produces a light colored soap, whereas a bleached light colored tallow produces a soap off shade.
From Soap-Making Manual A Practical Handbook on the Raw Materials, Their Manipulation, Analysis and Control in the Modern Soap Plant. by E. G. Thomssen
The oil and tallows which are chiefly carbon and hydrogen, unite with the oxygen of the air and form carbonic acid and watery vapor, producing heat during the process.
From American Woman's Home by Catharine Esther Beecher
There’s floors upon floors beneath, stored with jute and dye-woods, teas, coffees, spices, tobaccos, and lowest of all on the ground floor and in the cellarage, tallows in great hogsheads.
From Adventures of Working Men From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon by George Manville Fenn
Their only question will be that of their Legendre, or some oilier of their legislative butchers: How he cuts up; how he tallows in the caul or on the kidneys.
From The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12) by Edmund Burke
"I've never tried to make my figures come out this way," he explained last week, pointing to a tall figure reminiscent of a grotesquely tallowed candle.
From Time Magazine Archive
"But in running in for the town, you kept the lead going, out of question, and must have tallowed as usual."
From Pathfinder; or, the inland sea by James Fenimore Cooper
No vessel would go far unless its under-water parts were either sheathed, tarred, or tallowed; for sea-worms burrow alarmingly, and 'whiskers' grow like the obnoxious weeds they are.
From All Afloat A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways by William Charles Henry Wood
Never did a Jersey "jay" in Sunday clothes and tallowed boots respond to a bunco steerer's greeting with a gladder smile than mine to that pious old past-master of craft.
From The Deluge by David Graham Phillips
He tallowed the lead and heaved it, and brought it down to Weeks.
From Ensign Knightley and Other Stories by A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason
While the ships, however, were on the keel, and the men busy heaving, scrubbing, and tallowing, they were attacked by a large body of the natives.
From The Monarchs of the Main, Volume III (of 3) Or, Adventures of the Buccaneers by Walter Thornbury
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
