tarot

Etymology

It is borrowed from French tarot, also tarault and tarau in the 16th century,^[2][3] from Italian tarocco, plural tarocchi,^[2][4][5][6] whose origin is unknown.^{[2][4][6][7][8]} Merriam-Webster gives the immediate source as Middle French and the Italian one as Old Italian.^[9] Dictionary.com takes the English word as a back-formation from the plural taros.^[10] Etymonline mentions a possible Arabic source, a verb meaning "he rejected, put aside",^[4] which Klein accepts after Lokotsch, comparing mattress and tare;^[11] Partridge proposed an Egyptian origin.^[3] The same Italian word gave taroc and German Tarock.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the plural, the card game played with these cards: 1592, in Delamothe's French Alphabeth,^[2][9] the 1590s in Etymonline.^[4]

Semantic evolution

According to Etymonline, tarot games arose among aristocrats in northern Italy in the early 15th century, and by the early 16th century tarocchi was the Italian name of the special cards and then of the whole pack; strictly the tarots are the 22 figured cards added to the 56-card suited pack.^[4] The OED says the cards were first used in Italy in the 14th century,^[2] the Shorter Oxford in the 15th.^[12] The pack was long an everyday game deck in much of Europe, though not in Britain; its use in fortune-telling seems to date from the late 18th century and became popular in England in the 20th.^[4] In English the word named the game from 1592, and a single card only from 1872,^[2] or the late 19th century in the Shorter Oxford.^[12]

Timeline

• 1592 – in the plural, the card game.^[2][9]
• 1872 – one of the cards of a tarot pack.^[2][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pack of usually 78 playing cards, with four suits of 14 cards and 22 picture cards, used mainly in fortune-telling.^[8][5]
2. Any of the 22 picture cards of such a pack, showing virtues, vices and natural forces, which serve as trumps in the game of tarok.^[5][9][8]
3. (in the plural) The card game tarok.^[9][5][2]

Adjective

1. Relating to tarot cards: a tarot reading.^[8]

Related words

• taroc
• tarok

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press