Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Tabby |
TabbyAdjective1. Having a gray or brown streak or a pattern or a patchy coloring; used especially of the patterned fur of cats. Noun1. A cat with a gray or tawny coat mottled with black. 2. Female cat. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
"Tabby" is a name that signifies or is derived from: "a gazelle". |
Date "tabby" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Mining | A mixture of lime with shells, gravel, or stones in equal proportions, with an equal proportion of water, forming a mass that when dry becomes ashard as rock; a substitute for bricks or stone in building. (references) |
Slang in 1811 | TABBY. An old maid; either from Tabitha, a formal antiquated name; or else from a tabby cat, old maids being often compared to cats. To drive Tab; to go out on a party of pleasure with a wife and family. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Tabby cat is often mistaken as a certain breed of cat. The term tabby actually refers to the stripes, dots and swirl patterns of the cat's coat. The tabby pattern is believed to be the original basic cat pattern, and the closest to their distant ancestors. Tabby coloration is found in many breeds of cat, as well as among the general 'moggy' population. The word seems to come from the Arabic attabiyah originally referring to a kind of striped silk, and later to describe striped cats.
A black classic tabby 
Tabbies come in two basic colorations - red, brown or ginger tabbies (with a rich orange/gold/red coat), and silver or grey tabbies (coat colouring including silver/grey/black). Black tabbies (as in the picture above) are often wrongly called "brown tabbies" (especially in the US), but they are genetically black and have nothing to do with the "brown" (chocolate) gene, so the name can be misleading.
The tabby stripes can either take the form of a distinct mackerel or fishbone striping, or they may be more loosely splotched. Alternatively, they may have a spotted coat, which is actually stripes broken up into distinct blotches, or they may be ticked. This is where the hairs have distinct bands of colour on them, breaking the tabby patterning up into a salt-and-pepper appearance.
Many tabbies have a distinct 'M' marking on their forehead--the mark of the true tabby. There are several legends about where this came from. Also, all tabby cats have a brick red or rose-colored nose and light-colored areas around the eyes.
Until the 16th century, the spotted tabby with its wild ancestral markings of spots and stripes was the dominant tabby type. During the early 1500s a variant of the spotted tabby appeared, now known as the mackerel tabby with its striped coat. These markings then became the dominant tabby pattern. The spotted tabby, while not uncommon, is now usually found only in purebred animals.
External links:
- http://www.felinefuture.com/fact/anatomy/tabbycat.html - Tabby Cat Anatomy Facts from Feline Future
- http://www.water-spirit.com/Dragons_Lair/tabby.shtml - history of the tabby cat
- http://www.devons.com/tabby.html - Tabby coat patterns
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Tabby cat."
Synonyms: TabbySynonyms: brinded (adj), brindle (adj), brindled (adj), queen (n), tabby cat (n). (additional references) |
| Synonym by domain: tabbies (industry). |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Conversation | Gossip, tattler; Paul Pry; tabby; chatterer; (loquacity); interlocutor; (spokesman); conversationist, dialogist. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Tabby |
| English words defined with "tabby": catamountain ♦ European wildcat ♦ Felis silvestris ♦ Tabbied, Tabbies, Tabbying ♦ Water tabby. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "tabby": Tabbyite. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "tabby": Tobine. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Listen tabby, you're a nice kid, which is two strikes against ya so don't go looking for strike three okay (Beast Wars: Transformers; writing credit: Bob Forward; Lawrence G. DiTillio) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Timid Tabby (1957) Salt Water Tabby (1947) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Tabby ruins at Chocolate on the northwest side of the island. Tabby refers to the building material which is a durable cement-like mixture of equal parts of water, sand, shell, and lime. These ruins are part of an antebellum plantation that was deserted following the Civil War. Credit: America's Coastlines. |  | Ruin of tabby (shell) construction, St. Mary's, Georgia / Walker Evans. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Tabby construction. Ruins of supposed Spanish mission, St. Marys, Georgia. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Ruins of supposed Spanish mission. Tabby construction. St. Marys, Georgia. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Detail of tabby wall. Ruins of supposed Spanish mission. St. Marys Georgia. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |
| "Cat tabby gray close up" by Susan Tilley Commentary: "Cat tabby gray close up head and shoulders." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| "Tabby" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 70.59% of the time. "Tabby" is used about 34 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 70.59% | 24 | 71,196 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 26.47% | 9 | 117,287 |
| Noun (proper) | 2.94% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 34 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| "Tabby" is a name that signifies or is derived from: "a gazelle". | |||
| The following table summarizes names related to "Tabby." | |||
| Name | Gender | Language | Related Name |
| Tabitha | Female | Biblical | N/A |
| Tabatha | Female | English | Tabitha |
| Tabby | Female | English | Tabitha |
| Tabitha | Female | English | N/A |
| Tabea | Female | German | Tabitha |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
Expressions using "tabby": striped tabby ♦ tabby cat ♦ tabby moth ♦ water tabby. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "tabby": tabby-cat, tabby-cats. | |
Ending with "tabby": full-tabby, weak-tabby. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "tabby"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | tafta (taffeta), vija-vija (belted, streaky), mace laramane, lara-lara (motley, mottled, party-colored, party-coloured, patchwork), grua llafazane (talkative woman). (various references) | |
Arabic | مبرقع, قطة مخططة. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | котка на сиви ивици, котка на кафяви ивици, котка (cat, puss), клюкарка (gossip), на тъмни райета, на тъмни ивици. (various references) | |
Czech | mourovatá koèka, mourek. (various references) | |
Danish | moiré (cloudiness, moiré, watered, watermarked, waved). (various references) | |
Dutch | tabijn. (various references) | |
Farsi | گربه ماده (Grimalkin), حریرموجدار, زن نمام , اعتابی . (various references) | |
Finnish | lyhytkarvainen tabby (short-haired tabby). (various references) | |
French | tigré, tabis, moire (taffy), chat tigré (striped tabby). (various references) | |
German | klatschbase (chatterbox, gossip, gossip monger, scandalmonger, telltale), Katze (cat), getigerte katze. (various references) | |
Greek | ραβδωτό ύφασμα, παρδαλή ραβδωτή γάτα, τάμπι. (various references) | |
Hebrew | משי גלי, חתולה (cat). (various references) | |
Hungarian | pletykázó vénasszony. (various references) | |
Italian | tabis, striato (streaked, striated, striped), soriano, marezzato (moire), a strisce (streaky, striped). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 虎猫 (tabby cat, tiger cat, wild cat). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | とらねこ (tabby cat, tiger cat, wild cat). (various references) | |
Manx | kayt breck (tabby cat, tortoise-shell cat). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | abbytay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | tafetá (taffeta). (various references) | |
Romanian | tabinet, vãrgat (brindled, pied, rayed, streaked, streaky, striped), pisicã vãrgatã, moar (moire), mit (fable, legend, myth, story), fatã bãtrânã cicãlitoare. (various references) | |
Russian | узор ткани, муар (moire, tabbies), маур, полосатый (brindled, ribbed, streaky, striated, striped, stripy), полосатая кошка, пестрый (brindled, chequered, dappled, jazzy, medley, motley, parti-colored, particoloured, party-colored, party-coloured, piebald, pied, variegated). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | torokuša (jackdaw, talkative), vrsta svile (moire, shantung), prugasta mačka. (various references) | |
Spanish | gato atigrado. (various references) | |
Swedish | spräcklig (dapple, dappled, speckled, spreckled). (various references) | |
Thai | แมวลายสีน้ำตาลหรือสีเทา. (various references) | |
Turkish | tekir (mullet, tabby cat), kız kurusu (old maid, spinster), harç (daub, fees, Grout, mortar, plaster, tax), hârelendirmek, geçkin kız, acuze (Beldam, beldame, grimalkin, hag, old woman), çizgili yapmak, çizgili kumaş (stripe), çizgili (banded, barred, brindled, fasciated, lined, liny, ruled, streaky, striate, striated, striped). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | стара пліткарка, смугастий кіт, смугастий (bandy, barred, belted, ribbed, streaked, streaky, striped, zonate, zoned), муаровий (watered), муар (moire). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | người đàn bà lắm mồm, mèo (litter). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| French | 1500-Modern | tabis. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "tabby": tabbying. (additional references) | |
| |
"Tabby" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: abby, Atabey, tabbo, tabbys, Tabubil, taby, tabye, tebba, tebby, Tibb, tibby, tiby, tibye, Tobbi, tobby, Trabb, Trabbi, Trabbie. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "tabby" (pronounced ta"bē) |
| 3 | -a" b ē | Abbe, abbey, cabbie, cabby, crabby, flabby, Gabby, Gaby, shabby. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-b-t-y" | |
-1 letter: baby. | |
-2 letters: aby, bat, bay, tab. | |
-3 letters: ab, at, ay, ba, by, ta, ya. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-b-b-t-y" | |
+1 letter: batboy. | |
+2 letters: abbotcy, babysat, babysit, batboys, bobstay, rabbity. | |
+3 letters: babysits, bobstays, rabbitry, tabbying. | |
+4 letters: barbarity, habitably. | |
+5 letters: babysitter, unbeatably. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Names: Derived from 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Translations: Ancient 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
