tarmac

Etymology

It is from English a clipping of tarmacadam,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} first registered as the trademark Tarmac in 1903.^[2][3][8] Tarmacadam, recorded from 1882, is made of tar and macadam,^[2][3][4] the road material named after the Scottish surveyor and engineer John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836), who developed a way of levelling roads and paving them with gravel.^[3][8][2] McAdam did not approve of binding materials; mixing tar with the gravel began in the 1880s.^[3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tarmac, a kind of tar macadam made of iron slag soaked with tar and creosote: 1 July 1903, in the Trade Marks Journal.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The trademark soon became a general word, and it is now often written with a small letter.^[2] By 1919 it was used generally in Britain for an airport runway,^[3][4] and the tarmac is the runway or apron of an airport.^[9][10] The verb, to surface with tarmac, is recorded from 1966,^[2] and the American Heritage Dictionary records a use of aircraft waiting on a taxiway.^[11] In East African English, from 1982, to tarmac is to walk the streets looking for work.^[2]

Timeline

• 1903 – Tarmac, a trademark for a kind of tar macadam.^[2][3][8]
• 1919 – an airport runway or apron made of tarmac.^[3][4][12]
• 1966 – verb, to surface with tarmac.^[2]
• 1982 – East African verb, to look for work.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A paving material of crushed stone bound with tar and bitumen, used for roads and runways.^[10][2][9]
2. A road, surface or runway made of it, especially the tarmac, the runway or apron of an airport: The plane sat on the tarmac for an hour.^{[11][12][4][10]}

Verb

1. To surface with tarmac: The council tarmacked the lane last spring.^[10][2][9]
2. Of an aircraft, to wait on a taxiway, or to keep an aircraft waiting there.^[11]
3. In East Africa, to walk the streets looking for work.^[2]

Related words

• tarmacadam
• macadam
• macadamize
• tar

Usage notes

Tarmac was originally a trademark,^[11][2][8] and Merriam-Webster still records Tarmac as a trademark for a bituminous binder for roads.^[4][12]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
12. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster