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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

tarpit.

A lake of asphalt formed when subterranean bitumen leaks to the ground surface. Such pits are important in forming fossil fuel reserves; they are also apt to trap passing animals, which become fossilized in the tar.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun
  1. A lake of asphalt formed when subterranean bitumen leaks to the ground surface. Such pits are important in forming fossil fuel reserves; they are also apt to trap passing animals, which become fossilized in the tar.

  2. A service that purposely delays incoming connections in order to reduce the effectiveness of spamming and similar techniques.

Where this word comes from

From tar + pit.

verb
  1. To delay by means of a tarpit service.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From tar + pit.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.