tart.
Sharp to the taste; acid; sour.
Meaning & usage
Sharp to the taste; acid; sour.
I ate a very tart apple.
High or too high in acidity.
Sharp; keen; severe.
He gave me a very tart reply.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English tart, from Old English teart (“sharp, rough, severe”), from Proto-West Germanic *tart, from Proto-Germanic *tartaz (“rough, sharp, tearing”), from Proto-Germanic *teraną (“to tear”), from Proto-Indo-European *der- (“to flay, split, cleave”). Related to Scots tairt (“tart; tartness”), Dutch tarten (“to defy, challenge, mock”), German trotzen (“to defy, brave, mock”), perhaps Albanian thartë (“sour, acid, sharp”).
A type of small open pie, or piece of pastry, now typically containing jelly (US) / jam (UK) or conserve, or sometimes other fillings (chocolate, custard, egg, butter, historically even meat or other savory fillings).
A melt (block of wax for use in a tart burner).
Where this word comes from
From Middle English tart, tarte, from Old French tarte, tartre (“flat pastry”) (compare Medieval Latin tarta), of unknown origin. Perhaps an alteration of Old French torte, tourte, from Latin turta, perhaps from tŏrta f (“twisted”), in which case it would be cognate to torta.
A prostitute.
Any woman with loose sexual morals.
Where this word comes from
From a rebracketing of sweetheart, or from jam tart (“attractive woman”) by shortening.
To practice prostitution.
To practice promiscuous sex.
To dress garishly, ostentatiously, whorishly, or sluttily.
Where this word comes from
From a rebracketing of sweetheart, or from jam tart (“attractive woman”) by shortening.
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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.