Also 4–6 tarte, 5 taarte, tartt, 6 tairte, 9 Sc. tairt, teart. [a. F. tarte (13th c.), an open tart, in our sense 1 b (a), = med.L. tarta (1103 in Du Cange); of uncertain origin.
F. tarte was held by Diez to be altered from OF. torte, F. tourte, a disk-shaped cake or loaf, also a pasty, a pie, late L. torta panis, a kind of loaf or bread (Vulg.); and the two words certainly sometimes run together in use: cf. It. (Florio) torta, tortara ‘a tart’ (Baretti), torta ‘a pasty’; Sp. (Minsheu) torta, tarta ‘a tart,’ mod. Sp. torta a covered pasty, tarta a tart; but there are phonetic difficulties in the identification, which is rejected by Hatz.-Darm. Du. taart, tart, is from Fr. The Welsh torth, Breton tors round loaf, are from L. torta or OF. torte.]
1. Name for various dishes consisting of a crust of baked pastry enclosing different ingredients; † a. formerly with meat, fish, cheese, fruit, etc.: the same or nearly the same as a pie. b. In current use restricted to (a) a flat, usually small, piece of pastry, with no crust on the top (so distinguished from a pie), filled with fruit preserve or other sweet confection; (b) a covered fruit pie: PIE sb.2 1 (c): in this application formerly chiefly dial. or local, now in polite or fashionable use.
a. a. 1400[?]. Morte Arth., 186. Tartes of Turky, taste whane þeme lykys.
c. 1400. Rom. Rose, 7041. With tendre gees, & with capons, With tartes, or with chesis [MS. cheffis] fat, With deynte flawnes, brode & flat.
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 565/44. Artocrea, ance a tart.
c. 1430. Two Cookery-bks. (E.E.T.S.), 47. Tartes de chare… Tartes of Fyssche.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 487/1. Taarte, bake mete…, tarta.
1523. Skelton, Garl. Laurel, 1245. The Balade also of the Mustarde Tarte; Suche problemis to paynt it longyth to his arte.
1552. Huloet, Tarte or march pane, chanona.
1598. Epulario, H iij. To make Tarts … of Creuisses. Ibid., H iij b. To make Tarts of Eeles.
1771. Mrs. Haywood, New Present, 192. A Tart [made of veal suet, seasoning, bread, eggs, veal sweetbreads,… etc. made in a dish].
b. c. 1430. Two Cookery-bks. (E.E.T.S.), 48. Tartes of Frute in lente.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 119 b. The tartes made onlye of Heppes serue well to be eaten or them that vomit to much.
1580. in Hist. MSS. Comm., Var. Collect. (1903), 444 b. Dinner. To my Master…. A boild meat of mutton [etc.]. Second course. Rabytes roste. Chickins roste [etc.]…. Arttigoges, and strobarye tairte.
1584. Cogan, Haven Health, cvii. (1636), 108. Boyle them [fruit] … till they be soft, then to draw them, as yee doe a tart.
1668–9. Pepys, Diary, 24 Feb. A mighty neat dish of custards and tarts.
1696. Phillips (ed. 5), Tart, a sort of Baked Dish, consisting of Summer Fruits bak’d in Paste.
c. 1710. Celia Fiennes, Diary (1888), 218. One of ye West Country tarts … its an apple pye with a Custard all on the top.
1725. Bradley’s Fam. Dict., s.v., When the Tart is made, you must cover it at top with some Bands of Paste, and having sugar’d it, bake it in the Oven.
1737. Gentl. Mag., VII. 307/2. Need I the currant sing, or goosberry praise, Prepar’d in tarts which artful females raise?
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 215. To preserve Currants for Tarts.
1780. Cowper, Progr. Err., 193.
| But he can draw a pattern, make a tart, | |
| And has the ladies’ etiquette by heart. |
1899. W. H. Mallock, Individualist, xix. 187. Her rejection of a nice little jam tart … ‘she never touched patisserie.’
2. fig. Applied (orig. endearingly) to a girl or woman (often one of immoral character). slang.
1887. Morn. Post, 25 Jan. The paragraph … referred to the young ladies in the chorus at the Avenue and spoke of them as ‘tarts.’ It was suggested on the part of the prosecution that the word ‘tart’ really meant a person of immoral character.
1894. Daily News, 5 Feb., 2/7. Some of the women described themselves as ‘Tarts’ … and said that they got their living in the best way they could.
1898. in M. Davitt, Life & Progr. Austral., xxxv. 192. And his lady love’s his ‘donah,’ Or his ‘dinah,’ or his ‘tart.’
1903. Farmer, Slang, Tart (common). Primarily a girl, chaste or not; now (unless loosely used) a wanton, mistress, ‘good-one.’
3. attrib. and Comb., as tart-dish, -maker, -seller; † tart-stuff, a confection of fruit for making tarts (obs.); tart-woman, A woman who sells tarts.
1782. Withering, in Phil. Trans., LXXII. 329. Vessels … made like a common *tart-dish, with a spreading border.
1876. Mrs. H. Wood, Parkwater, xvii. 167. ‘Be you asleep?’ suddenly demanded the *tart-maker.
1886. Pall Mall G., 15 May, 3/2. Verses, eulogizing the tart-maker and her handiwork.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 199/1. I’ve been a cake and a *tart-seller in the streets for seven or eight years.
1623. Althorp MS., in Simpkinson, Washingtons (1860), p. xlvii. Lumpe sugar for *tarte stuffe.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, l. When he was rich he would buy Leader’s pencil-case, and pay the *tart-woman. Ibid. (1851), Eng. Hum., iii. (1863), 126. This boy went invariably into debt with the tart-woman.
