Tare

Pronunciation

• AusE IPA: /teː/, /teÉ™/
• UK IPA: /tɛː/, /tɛə/
• US IPA: /tɛɹ/
• Rhymes: -ɛə(r)
• Homophones: tear

Middle English tare ("vetch"), from Proto-Germanic *tarwō (cf. Dutch tarwe ("wheat")), from Proto-Indo-European *dr̥Hu̯ā (cf. Welsh drewg ("darnel"), Lithuanian dirvà ("field"), Ancient Greek δάρατος (dáratos, "bread"), Sanskrit दूर्वा (dūrvā, "panic grass, millet")).

Full definition of tare

Noun

1. (rare) A vetch, or the seed of a vetch.
2. (rare) A damaging weed growing in fields of grain.
• Matthew 13:25 (KJV)But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
• 1985, John Fowles, A Maggot:I saw as I thought an uncle and guardian who has led a sober, industrious and Christian life and finds himself obliged to look on the tares of folly in his own close kin.

Middle French tare, from Italian tara, from Arabic طرحة (ṭarḥa, "that which is thrown away"), a derivative of طرح (ṭáraḥa, "to throw (away)").

Online Etymology Dictionary

Noun

1. The empty weight of a container.

Verb

1. (chiefly business and legal) To take into account the weight of the container, wrapping etc. in weighting merchandise.
• 1886, Records of the History, Laws, Regulations, and Statistics of the Tobacco Trade of the United Kingdom, p. 86,he is ... to tare such number of bales as may be deemed necessary to settle the net weight for duty.
2. (sciences) To set a zero value on an instrument (usually a balance) that discounts the starting point.
• 2003, Dany Spencer Adams, Lab Math, CSHL Press, p. 63,Spectrometers, for example, must be zeroed before each reading; balances must be tared before each weighing.

Synonyms

• (to set a zero value) zero

Usage notes

In measuring instruments other than balances, this process is usually called zeroing.

Verb

1. (obsolete)

   tare

   (simple past of tear)

Anagrams

• rate, tear