[Doublet of TACHE v.2; cf. TACK sb.1]
I. To attach.
† 1. trans. To attach, fasten (one thing to another, or things together). Obs. except as in 3.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), III. 173. He … made hem sprede and takkede þe skyn aboute þe chayer [orig. sellæ judiciariæ circumponi] þere þe iuge schulde sitte in plee forto deme.
c. 1400. Brut, 103. Kyng Alurede hade þat boke in his warde, and … lete hit faste bene tackede to a piler, þat men myȝt hit nouȝt remeve.
1483. Act 1 Rich III., c. 8 § 16. Without tacking or sowing of any Bulrushes … upon the Lists of the same.
1530. Palsgr., 746/1. Tacke it faste with a nayle.
a. 1616. Beaum. & Fl., Scornf. Lady, II. iii. Peace, or I’le tack your tongue up to your roof.
1696. Bp. Patrick, Comm. Exod. xxvi. (1697), 506. The Loops were … tackt to the Selvage of the outermost of them.
1713. Steele, Englishm., No. 26. 172. He dried and tacked together the Skins of Goats.
1843. Le Fevre, Life Trav. Phys., II. I. xviii. 153. We often tacked on twelve horses to a small vehicle.
b. transf. and fig. To attach.
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Gold. Bk. M. Aurel., xliii. (1535), 83 b. Al the vnderstandynges are tacked to one free wyll.
1653. trans. Hales’ Dissert. de pace, in Phenix (1708), II. 376. The Fathers did, with ingenious comments, tack the mysteries of their philosophy to the Word of God.
1695. Prior, Taking Namur, ix. With Eke’s and Also’s tack thy Strain, Great Bard.
1791. Gilpin, Forest Scenery, II. 187. He who works without taste … tacks one part to another, as his misguided fancy suggests.
† c. To join in wedlock. slang. Obs.
1732. Fielding, Debauchees, III. xiv. We will employ this honest gentleman here, to tack our son and daughter together.
1775. Sheridan, Duenna, III. iv. I’ faith, he must tack me first; my love is waiting.
1821. Sporting Mag., VIII. 105. A Curate … Had brought to the altar a pair to be tack’d.
† 2. To connect or join by an intervening part.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, II. xii. (1840), 65. It [Tyre] … was tacked to the continent with a small neck of land.
1645. Evelyn, Diary, June. The numberless Islands tacked together by no fewer than 450 bridges.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), I. 186. They … have tacked the wings to a house by a colonade.
3. To attach in a slight or temporary manner; esp. to attach with tacks (short nails or slight stitches), which can be easily taken out.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 485/2. Takkyn’, or some what sowyn’ to-gedur,… consutulo.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., III. x. 175. If agitation … jog that out of thy head, which was there rather tack’d then fastned.
1696. J. F., Merchant’s Ware-ho., 8. The Hamborough is rowled up very hard, and either tacked with Thred, or tyed about with Tape.
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 53. Drive in a small Tack on each side … or you may Tack down two small thin boards on either side.
1830. in Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), II. 348. The wretched boards tacked together, to serve for a table.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxiii. (1856), 295. I copy the play-bill from the original … tacked against the main-mast.
1894. Times, 3 March, 11/3. He had ‘tacked’ the cloth down to the stage.
1896. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., I. 434. They [jackets] are lined with a layer of cotton-wool neatly tacked in.
Mod. The sleeves are tacked in to try how they fit.
b. spec. † (a) Gardening. To fasten with tacks (TACK sb.1 3 a). Obs.
1693. J. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., II. 41. In Tacking for the first time after the Pruning.
(b) Metal-working. To keep (a metal plate, etc.) in place by small lumps of solder until the soldering is completed.
1886. in Cassell’s Encycl. Dict.
(c) Plumbing. To secure (a pipe) with tacks (TACK sb.1 3 b).
1895. in Funk’s Stand. Dict.
4. To join together (events, accounts, etc.) so as to produce or show a connected whole; to bring into connection. (Often implying arbitrary or artificial union.)
1683. Dryden, Vindic. Duke of Guise, Dram. Wks. 1725, V. 325. Mr. Hunt has found a rare Connection, for he tacks them together, by the Kicking of the Sheriffs.
1695. J. Edwards, Perfect. Script., 434. Many expositors labour to tack this text to the immediately foregoing one.
1699. Bentley, Phal., 166. The Gentleman … tacks these two accounts together.
1712. J. James, trans. Le Blond’s Gardening, 128. The foregoing Practices … being but Things detached and separate,… there is still a farther Difficulty to tack them together, so as to make one Piece.
1720. Waterland, Eight Serm., 221. One might suspect that there had been two Versions of the same words, and Both, by degrees, taken into the Text, and tack’d together.
1844. Lingard, Anglo-Sax. Ch. (1858), I. App. B. 326. Traditionary tales, tacked together without regard to place or chronology.
5. To attach or add as a supplement; to adjoin, append, annex; spec. in parliamentary usage: see quots. and cf. TACK sb.1 8.
1683. Robinson, in Ray’s Corr. (1848), 137. Thus far your queries as to France, to which I will tack an observation to fill up.
1692. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), II. 365. A committee of the lords sat … to search presidents about tacking one bill to another.
1700. Evelyn, Diary, April. The greate contest between the Lords and Commons concerning the Lords power of … rejecting bills tack’d to the money bill.
1757–8. Smollett, Hist. Eng. (1759), IX. 296. The lords had already resolved by a vote, That they would never pass any bill sent up from the commons, to which a clause foreign to the bill should be tacked.
1791. ‘G. Gambado,’ Ann. Horsem., ix. (1809), 107. As it’s a fact, you may tack my name to it.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xxii. IV. 771. A strong party in the Commons … proposed to tack the bill which the Peers had just rejected to the Land Tax Bill.
1863. H. Cox, Instit., I. viii. 114. The return is made by indenture … is signed and sealed, and returned to the Crown office in Chancery, tacked to the writ itself.
1902. L. Stephen, Stud. Biog., IV. v. 179. So prosperous a consummation was never tacked to so dismal a beginning.
1909. [see TACKING vbl. sb. b].
6. Law. To unite (a third or subsequent incumbrance) to the first, whereby it acquires priority over an intermediate mortgage.
1728. Sir T. Jekyll, in Peere Williams, Reports (1793), II. 491. If a judgment creditor … buys in the first mortgage … he shall not tack or unite this to his judgment and thereby gain a preference.
1818. Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), II. 225.
1841. Penny Cycl., XIX. 361/2. Now if … D pays off B, and takes an assignment of his mortgage and of the outstanding term; if, to use the technical phrase, he ‘tacks’ B’s security to his own, he unites in himself equal equity with C, and also the legal right which the term gives him.
1883. Encycl. Brit., XVI. 849/1. In addition to the risk of a third mortgagee tacking.
II. Nautical senses. (From TACK sb.1 5.)
7. intr. To shift the tacks and brace the yards, and turn the ship’s head to the wind, so that she shall sail at the same angle to the wind on the other side; to go about in this way; also tack about. Hence, to make a run or course obliquely against the wind; to proceed by a series of such courses; to beat to windward: often said of the ship itself.
1557. in A. Jenkinson, Voy. & Trav. (Hakl. Soc.), I. 8. The rest of the shippes shall tacke or take of their sailes in such sort as they may meete and come together, in as good order as may be.
1595. Drake’s Voy. (Hakl. Soc.), 22. They had the winde of us, but we soone regained it upon them, which made them tacke about.
c. 1600. Chalkhill, Thealma & Cl. (1683), 19. His Ketch Tackt to and fro, the scanty wind to snatch.
1748. Anson’s Voy., II. iv. 163. We tacked and stood to the N.W.
1777. Robertson, Amer. (1783), III. 217. These … could veer and tack with great celerity.
1834. Nat. Philos., III. Navigation, II. v. § 55. 26 (Usef. Knowl. Soc.). When the wind blows from any point within six points of the bearing of a port for which a vessel is bound, she must tack or ply to windward.
1873. Daily News, 21 Aug. The little craft was caught by a sudden squall when tacking, or, as sailors say, ‘in stays,’ taken aback, and capsized in a moment.
1886. E. L. Bynner, A. Surriage, i. 16. Two or three … ketches were tacking up before the brisk off-shore breeze to make the anchorage.
b. Said of the wind: To change its direction.
1727. Philip Quarll (1816), 32. I was hurried on board, the wind having tacked about and fair for our departure.
Mod. [A sailor said] The wind was tacking all over the place.
8. intr. a. transf. To make a turning or zigzag movement on land.
1700. T. Brown, Amusem. Ser. & Com., 34. I Tack’d about, and made a Trip over Moor-fields.
1716. B. Church, Hist. Philip’s War (1865), I. 97. They … tack’d short about to run as fast back as they came forward.
1787. ‘G. Gambado,’ Acad. Horsem. (1809), 37. [The Massilians] Without a bridle on the bare back, Make with a stick their horse or mare tack.
1854–6. Patmore, Angel in Ho., I. ii. IV. (1879), 184. But he who tacks and tries short cuts Gets fool’s praise and a broken shin.
b. fig. To change one’s attitude, opinion, or conduct; also, to proceed by indirect methods.
1637. Pocklington, Altare Chr., 169. He will … tacke about for other considerations … if hee bee well put to it.
1663. Pepys, Diary, 24 June. He hath lately been observed to tack about at Court, and to endeavour to strike in with the persons that are against the Chancellor.
1791–1823. Disraeli, Cur. Lit., Dom. Hist. Sir E. Coke. Bacon … tacked round, and promised Buckingham to promote the match he so much abhorred.
1860–70. Stubbs, Lect. Europ. Hist., II. ii. (1904), 166. He is not for a moment diverted, although he sometines consents to tack.
9. trans. To alter the course of (a ship) by turning her with her head to the wind (sometimes said of the ship); opposed to WEAR v. Also, to work or navigate (a ship) against the wind by a series of tacks. Also fig.
1637. Pocklington, Altare Chr., 152. No man that has not his understanding tackt and the eye thereof turned after the humour of the men of Gr[antham].
1747. in Col. Rec. Pennsylv., V. 115. They then tacked the Ship and stood out to Sea.
1805. Naval Chron., XIV. 16. She tacked Ship.
1860. E. Stamp, in Merc. Marine Mag., VII. 279. All hands were turned up to tack ship.
1906. Temple Bar Mag., Jan., 72. It is sung sometimes when tacking ship in fair weather.
