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tarbrush

[ tahr-bruhsh ]

noun

  1. a brush for applying tar.
  2. Older Slang: Disparaging and Offensive. Black or Asian ancestry.


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Word History and Origins

Origin of tarbrush1

First recorded in 1705–15; tar 1 + brush 1
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Example Sentences

I imagine there’s plenty of spiteful, behind-the-scenes chatter about whether this “touch of the tarbrush” will taint Meghan and Harry’s offspring.

On either side of the divide between Euro and native, historians stand ready with tarbrush and gold leaf, and instead of the wicked old stereotypes, we have a whole outfit of equally misleading new ones.

In this way, reports Potter, Cogg-Willoughby was able to suggest that De Sint probably had a "touch of the tarbrush in his ancestry."

Posed before Neil Kingsblood is the agonizing moral question: must I admit "my touch of the tarbrush" when I know what misery this admission will create for my wife and child?

One day during this summer the groom cleaned and dressed me with such extraordinary care that I thought some new change must be at hand; he trimmed my fetlocks and legs, passed the tarbrush over my hoofs, and even parted my forelock.

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