tattoo

• IPA^(key): /tæˈtu(ː)/, [tʰæˈtʰu̟(ː)]

A tattoo (image made in skin)

From earlier tattaow, tattow, a borrowing from Samoan tatau (“to tap, to strike”).

tattoo (plural tattoos)

1. An image made in the skin with ink and a needle.
2. A method of decorating the skin by inserting colored substances under the surface. The skin is punctured with a sharp instrument, which now is usually a solenoid-driven needle, that carries the inks to lower layers of the skin.
3. (military) A drum performance or display

• tat, tatt

tattoo (third-person singular simple present tattoos, present participle tattooing, simple past and past participle tattooed)

1. To apply a tattoo to (someone or something).
2. To tap rhythmically on, to drum.
   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 22:

     He had looked at the clock many scores of times; and at the street, where the rain was pattering down, and the people as they clinked by in pattens, left long reflections on the shining stone: he tattooed at the table: he bit his nails most completely […]

3. (baseball) To hit the ball hard, as if to figuratively leave a tattoo on the ball.

   Jones tattoos one into the gap in left; that will clear the bases.

• screwed, blued and tattooed / screwed, glued and tattooed

From earlier tap-to, borrowed from Dutch taptoe, from tap (“tap; faucet on a cask”) + toe (“to; shut”). More at tap, to.

tattoo (plural tattoos)

1. (nautical) A signal played five minutes before taps (lights out).
2. A signal by drum or bugle ordering soldiers to return to their quarters.
3. A military display or pageant.

From Hindi टट्टू (ṭaṭṭū).

tattoo (plural tattoos)

1. A breed of pony from India; a pony of that breed.