the.com/tar
the sticky black judge of time, swallowing creatures whole and handing them to museums
means A thick, black, sticky liquid distilled from wood, coal, or petroleum, used for waterproofing, surfacing roads, and sealing — and the dark residue that builds up when tobacco burns.
from From Old English 'teru' or 'teoru,' a word shared across the Germanic languages — Dutch 'teer,' German 'Teer,' Old Norse 'tjara.' Scholars trace it back to a Proto-Germanic root tied to 'tree,' since the earliest tar was wrung from pine and other resinous woods. So the word still carries a faint memory of the forest it was boiled out of.
- La Brea
- Still traps unlucky animals in Los Angeles today
- Sailor slang
- Old sailors were nicknamed tars from waterproofing ropes
- Pitch drop
- One drip every decade in century-long experiment
- Roads
- Bound the highways carrying you everywhere you drive
- Etymology
- Word shares ancient roots with tree resin
la brea tar pits — los angeles natural asphalt deposits that trapped and preserved over 1 million ice age fossils
road tar macadam — bituminous material used since 1820s to pave roads, most common road surface globally
tar sands alberta — canadian oil deposits in northern alberta containing an estimated 170+ billion barrels of recoverable bitumen