Dictionary

tarboosh en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /tɑːˈbuːʃ/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /tɑɹˈbuʃ/ (General-American)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic طَرْبُوش (ṭarbūš).

Meanings

1. A red felt or cloth cap with a tassel, worn in the Arab world; a fez.
   • They were for their part astonished, for nobody had told them to expect a pretty woman to dinner, and the Prince suggested an intriguing exoticism with his tarboosh. 1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 743:
   • He rehearsed all the afternoon how he should play the heavy father for the young man's edification till he reduced his children to helpless giggling. Just before he was due Athelny routed out an Egyptian tarboosh and insisted on putting it on. 1915, W.S. Maugham, Of Human Bondage:
   • He went to the Pyramids and Syria, and there left his malady behind him, and returned with a fine beard, and a supply of tarbooshes and nargillies, with which he regales all his friends. 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 76, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
   • The man in the tarboosh turned finally and nodded in a strangely familiar way. 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 1215:

Forms

Deriveds

tarbooshed