v. Sc. [app. a parallel form to TARRY v. (sense 3): cf. harrow and harry, worow and worry.] intr. To delay, hesitate, show reluctance. (Nearly = TARRY v. 3.)
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, xxxiii. (George), 133. & gyf þu tarowis it to do … we sal bryne þe & al þine.
c. 1470. Henryson, Mor. Fab., XIII. (Frog & Mouse), xxii. And it to cun perqueir se thow not tarrow.
a. 1568. in Bannatyne Poems (Hunter. Cl.), 268. On twenty schilling now he tarrowis To ryd the he gait by the plewis.
1637. Rutherford, Lett. (1862), I. 295. I am sure it is sin to tarrow at Christ’s good meat, and not to eat when he saith, ‘Eat, O well beloved.’
1666. J. Livingstone, in Sel. Biog. (Wodrow Soc.), I. 282. Tarrow not of this my dealing.
1725. Ramsay, Gentle Sheph., I. ii. Like dawted wean that tarrows at its meat.
1786. Burns, Dream, xv. I hae seen their coggie fou, That yet hae tarrow’t at it.
1899. Spence, Shetland Folk-Lore, 216. The mair he tarrows the less he gets.
Hence Tarrowing vbl. sb. and ppl. a.; Tarrowingly adv., reluctantly.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, xxxix. (Cosme & Damyane), 60. He It tuk tarowandly.
c. 1598. D. Ferguson, Sc. Prov., § 42 (1785), 4. A tarrowing bairn was never fat.
1632. Rutherford, Lett. (1862), I. 91. Let your soul, like a tarrowing and mislearned child, take the dorts.
1832. A. Henderson, Sc. Prov., 131. Lang tarrowing taks a’ the thanks awa.
