The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Tar \Tar\, n. [Abbrev. from tarpaulin.]
   A sailor; a seaman. [Colloq.] --Swift.
   [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Tar \Tar\, n. [OE. terre, tarre, AS. teru, teoru; akin to D.
   teer, G. teer, theer, Icel. tjara, Sw. tj[aum]ra, Dan.
   ti[ae]re, and to E. tree. [root]63. See Tree.]
   A thick, black, viscous liquid obtained by the distillation
   of wood, coal, etc., and having a varied composition
   according to the temperature and material employed in
   obtaining it.
   [1913 Webster]

   Coal tar. See in the Vocabulary.

   Mineral tar (Min.), a kind of soft native bitumen.

   Tar board, a strong quality of millboard made from junk and
      old tarred rope. --Knight.

   Tar water.
   (a) A cold infusion of tar in water, used as a medicine.
   (b) The ammoniacal water of gas works.

   Wood tar, tar obtained from wood. It is usually obtained by
      the distillation of the wood of the pine, spruce, or fir,
      and is used in varnishes, cements, and to render ropes,
      oakum, etc., impervious to water.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Tar \Tar\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Tarred; p. pr. & vb. n.
   Tarring.]
   To smear with tar, or as with tar; as, to tar ropes; to tar
   cloth.
   [1913 Webster]

   To tar and feather a person. See under Feather, v. t.
      [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

tar
    n 1: any of various dark heavy viscid substances obtained as a
         residue [syn: pitch, tar]
    2: a man who serves as a sailor [syn: mariner, seaman,
       tar, Jack-tar, Jack, old salt, seafarer, gob,
       sea dog]
    v 1: coat with tar; "tar the roof"; "tar the roads"

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

177 Moby Thesaurus words for "tar":
   AB, Amytal, Amytal pill, Ancient Mariner, Argonaut, Demerol,
   Dolophine, Dylan, Flying Dutchman, H, Luminal, Luminal pill, M,
   Mickey Finn, Nembutal, Nembutal pill, Neptune, OD, Poseidon,
   Seconal, Seconal pill, Tuinal, Tuinal pill, Varuna, able seaman,
   able-bodied seaman, alcohol, amobarbital sodium, analgesic,
   anodyne, asphalt, barb, barbiturate, barbiturate pill, bedaub,
   besmear, besmirch, black stuff, blacktop, blue, blue angel,
   blue devil, blue heaven, blue velvet, bluejacket, buccaneer,
   butter, calmative, carpet, causeway, cement, charcoal,
   chloral hydrate, coal, coat, cobblestone, codeine,
   codeine cough syrup, concrete, crow, dab, daub, deep-sea man,
   defile, depressant, depressor, discolor, dolly, downer, ebon,
   ebony, enamel, fair-weather sailor, fisherman, flag, floor, gild,
   gloss, goofball, hard stuff, hearty, heroin, hop, horse, hypnotic,
   ink, jack, jack afloat, jack-tar, jacky, jet, junk, knockout drops,
   lacquer, laudanum, lay on, limey, liquor, lobsterman, lotus,
   mariner, matelot, meperidine, metal, methadone, morphia, morphine,
   narcotic, navigator, night, opiate, opium, pacifier, pain killer,
   paregoric, pave, pebble, pen yan, phenobarbital,
   phenobarbital sodium, pirate, pitch, prime, privateer,
   purple heart, quietener, rainbow, raven, red, sailor, salt, scag,
   sea dog, sea rover, seafarer, seafaring man, seaman,
   secobarbital sodium, sedative, shipman, shit, slap on, slather,
   sleep-inducer, sleeper, sleeping draught, sleeping pill, sloe,
   smack, smear, smear on, smoke, smut, sodium thiopental, soil,
   somnifacient, soot, soother, soothing syrup, soporific, spread on,
   spread with, stain, sully, tarnish, tarpaulin, tranquilizer, turps,
   undercoat, viking, water dog, whaler, white stuff, windjammer,
   windsailor, yellow, yellow jacket



V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (February 2016):

TAR
       Tape ARchiver (Unix)


The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

tar
tape archive
tarball

    ("Tape ARchive", following ar) Unix's
   general purpose archive utility and the file format it uses.
   Tar was originally intended for use with magnetic tape but,
   though it has several command line options related to tape,
   it is now used more often for packaging files together on
   other media, e.g. for distribution via the Internet.

   The resulting archive, a "tar file" (humourously, "tarball")
   is often compressed, using gzip or some other form of
   compression (see tar and feather).

   There is a GNU version of tar called gnutar with several
   improvements over the standard versions.

   Filename extension: .tar

   MIME type: unregistered, but commonly application/x-tar

   Unix manual page: tar(1).

   Compare shar, zip.

   (1998-05-02)