on the tack en · ADJ
Meanings
- (not-comparable) Tacking.
-
(not-comparable, slang) Without alcohol; teetotal.
For they were always going on the tack; a dozen pairs of sympathetic eyes would follow the consciously heroic youth as he wandered down the veranda with a glass of orange juice in his hand; and they asked anxiously, ‘How goes it, Frankie?’
1952, Doris Lessing, Martha Quest, Panther, published 1974, page 152: