Also 6–8 -fat. [f. TAN v. or sb. + VAT.] The receptacle, a tub, cistern, pit, or the like, containing the ‘ooze’ in which the hides are laid in tanning.
1592. Greene, Upst. Courtier, Wks. (Grosart), XI. 261. Howe comes this to passe? by your tanne-fats for sooth.
1615. E. S., Britain’s Buss, in Arb., Garner, III. 630. Every net must be tanned in a tan-fat.
1637. Complete Justice, Leather, 142. Tanner … putteth any hides into the tanne-fats before the lime be perfectly wrought out of them.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., VI. ii. § 1.
1779. E. Beatty, in J. L. Hardenbergh, Jrnl. (1879), 65. There was a tanfat farm with several Hides at a tannery which the soldiers got.
1788. trans. New Robinson Crusoe, II. 133. They place them [skins] in the tan vat, where they sprinkle them with liquor made also of oak bark.
1816. Woodfall, Law of Landlord & Tenant, xvii. 462. So, it lies against one who erects any thing, offensive so near the house of another, that it becomes useless thereby, as a swinesty,… or a tan-vat, or a smelting-house, or a smith’s forge.
1828. Webster, Tan-vat.
1895. S. R. Hole, Little Tour Amer., 86. Grant tried that [tanning], but found no gold in the tan-vat.
