Sc. Obs. Also 6 -ledder, 7 -ladder. [app. a. Gael. tarr-leathar belly-leather, f. tarr belly + leathar, ad. Eng. LEATHER.] ‘A strip of raw sheep-skin (cut from the belly of the skin when it was newly flayed), salted and dried, and cut up into thongs for ties or mid-couples of flails’ (Suppl. to Jamieson, 1887).
1566. Burgh Rec. Edinb. (1875), III. 226. The saidis flescheouris … cuttis ane tarledder of the skyn thairwith, diminisching thairby bayth the skynnis and the woll in lenth and breid. Ibid. Nor yit to diminische the samyn be cutting of ony sic pairt as thai call the tarledder.
a. 1585. Polwart, Flyting w. Montgomerie, 571. His shaven shoulders shawes the marks, no dout, Of teugh tarladders, tyres, and other tawes.
Hence † Tarleathered (-letherit, etc.) ppl. a., Sc. Obs., applied to a sheep-skin from which a tarleather has been cut.
1570. Rec. Convent. Roy. Burghs, I. 21. [To] be presentitt … with the skyn and byrn vn tarletheritt, and plukkitt or powitt.
1585. Burgh Rec. Edinb. (1882), IV. 407. That na merchants tak vpoun hand to by any skynns quhilk ar plukket and tarletherit as said is, vnder the pain foresaid.
