tapan.
/ˈtapə/, /ˈtɑːpə/, U.S. /ˈtɑpə/ A kind of unwoven cloth made by the indigenous people of Polynesia from the bark of the Paper Mulberry ( Broussonetia papyrifera).
ΘΚΠ
the world > textiles and clothing > textiles > textile fabric or an article of textile fabric > textile fabric > textile fabric made from specific material > made from other vegetable fibres > [noun] > other
bark-clothc1440
sedge-rug1592
grass cloth1638
medrinaque1704
Russia matting1773
gnatoo1817
tapa1823
vegetable flannel1840
rabanna1863
kapa1909
1823 Ld. Byron Island ii. ii. 21 In summer garments be our limbs arrayed; Around our waists the Tappa's white display'd.
1845 J. Coulter Adventures Pacific xvii. 268 The beating out of the tappa or native cloth.
1898 F. T. Bullen Cruise ‘Cachalot’ xxiii. 296 All..were furnished only with a ‘maro’ of ‘tapa’, scanty in its proportions, but still enough to wrap round their loins.
Compounds
C1. General attributive, as tapa-cloth, tapa-kilt, tapa-mallet, tapa-mat.
ΚΠ
1853 Househ. Words 7 135/2 This tappa cloth is made by beating a part of the bark..with a sort of wooden mall.
1866 J. Lindley & T. Moore Treasury Bot. I. 172/2 An exceedingly tough cloth, called tapa or kapa cloth.
1870 H. Meade Ride New Zealand 305 The unpleasant sound of the tappa mallet.
1891 R. L. Stevenson Vailima Lett. (1895) iv. 47 With blacked faces, turbans, tapa kilts, and guns, they looked very manly.
1906 Macmillan's Mag. Apr. 479 Sitting cross-legged on the tappa-mats.
C2. Instrumental, as tapa-shrouded adj.
ΚΠ
1899 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Nov. 671/2 The tapa-shrouded, slumbering forms of the few native passengers.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1910; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1823