Tattow

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. A design pricked into the skin with needles and colored with ink ; to decorate someone's skin with a permanent pattern using needles and dye
2. An indelible picture or mark made beneath the skin with pigment ; to puncture the skin repeatedly with ink to create a lasting design
3. A permanent pattern of colored ink set into the body ; to create such a pattern on a person's skin by pricking it with a needle

Etymology: "Tattow" is an archaic spelling of "tattoo", and the word's spelling history is itself a trail of guesses. The most-cited origin is Polynesian: it was borrowed from a Polynesian language, with Samoan "tatau" meaning "tattoo" but also "to tap, to strike", a nod to the tapping of ink into skin. Sailors and explorers carried the word back to Europe, where it took on the spelling "tattaow" before settling into the forms "tattow" and then "tattoo". A second line of descent runs through Dutch. "Taptoe" combined "tap", meaning a tap on a cask, with "toe", meaning "to" or "shut", and referred to the signal calling soldiers back to quarters. English borrowed this as "tap-to", and the Dutch word offers a rival explanation for how the spelling "tattoo" came to be, through the drumbeat that closed the soldiers' day.