tartan

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a woven fabric or pattern formed by horizontal and vertical bands of different colors crossing one another

   She chose a red-and-green tartan for the winter skirt.

2. 2
   noun

   a particular design of such intersecting colored bands, traditionally associated with a Scottish clan, family, regiment, or institution

   The museum displayed the regiment's ceremonial tartan beside its old uniform.

Borrowed from Scots tartan and Older Scots tartane, probably from Old French tiretaine, a cloth woven from mixed fibers. The modern association of particular tartan patterns with Scottish clans and institutions developed mainly from the late eighteenth century onward.

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