tartar

You probably know tartar as that hard buildup your dentist scrapes off your teeth: hardened plaque. But the word has a few other lives too. In older English writing, Tartar was also used for Tatar, the name of several Turkic peoples of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. You may also see it in the kitchen in cream of tartar, a common baking ingredient, or in tartar sauce, which is often served with fish. In older speech, calling someone a real tartar means they are very tough, sharp-tempered, or hard to deal with. The meaning depends a lot on context: teeth, food, history, or personality.

The word "tartar" has several different meanings that developed over time. Most commonly today, it refers to *dental tartar, the hard deposit that forms on teeth when plaque is not removed. Because it sticks so firmly, it usually has to be cleaned off by a dental professional. This meaning is related to an older chemical sense of the word: tartar was the name for the crusty potassium bitartrate deposits left in wine barrels. When purified, this becomes cream of tartar*, a familiar baking ingredient used to stabilize egg whites, help some recipes rise, and add a slight tang.

Another meaning appears in history. In older English, *Tartar was often used as a spelling of Tatar, referring broadly to Tatar peoples of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Older European writing sometimes used the term loosely for steppe groups connected with or confused with the Mongol world, which is why the word picked up strong associations with mounted warriors and invasion. From that sense came the older figurative expression "a real tartar,"* meaning a person who is fierce, severe, or difficult to manage.

There is also a food meaning in *tartar sauce, a sauce usually made with mayonnaise and chopped pickles or capers, especially with seafood. It is worth noting that the chemical word and the historical name do not come from exactly the same source. So depending on where you meet it, "tartar" might point to something on your teeth, something in a recipe, a sauce on the side of your meal, a historical people named more precisely as Tatars*, or an old-fashioned way to describe a very difficult person.