black and tanadj.n.
/ˌblak (ə)n(d) ˈtan/, U.S. /ˈˌblæk ən ˈtæn/ A. adj.
1. Of an animal, esp. a dog: having a coat of a black and tan (yellowish-brown) colour; spec. designating breeds of dog noted for such colouring (see sense B. 1).
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the world > animals > mammals > group Unguiculata or clawed mammal > family Canidae > terrier > [adjective] > of types of
black and tan1786
wire-haired1818
Clydesdale1887
West Highland1904
1772 Daily Advertiser 30 Nov. 2/2 Lost last Friday..a very small black and Tan-coloured Spaniel Bitch, of King Charles's Breed, answers to the Name of Chloe.]
1786 Daily Advertiser 10 Oct. 3/1 Lost in Fleet-Street, about Twelve o'Clock on Monday, a slender black and Tan Bitch Terrier.
1850 C. M. Yonge Langley School vi. 41 Oscar, the bloodhound, that monster of a black-and-tan dog.
1893 Speaker 1 Apr. 365/2 Three weeks since yon old sow budded. From her side, as from the Grecian horse, sprang suddenly a little company of black and tan piglets, fully legged and snouted for the battle of life.
1930 Piqua (Ohio) Daily Call 8 May 3/3 A large black and tan coon-hound came to the home of Lewis Shane and claimed the right for a home.
1948 C. L. B. Hubbard Dogs in Brit. iii. xx. 271 Since 1925 Black-and-Tan Miniature Terriers may exceed the previous weight limit of 7 pounds.
1989 Equinox Jan.–Feb. 38/1 Two young men, friends of the injured dog's owner, were waiting in the alley with a doleful black and tan border collie named Risabelle.
2005 Loot 13 Dec. (Liverpool ed.) 22/2 (advt.) German Shepherd Puppies. 4 black & tan, 5 sables, mum white long coat, dad black & tan.
2.
a. U.S. (originally derogatory). Of or designating any of the constitutional conventions, comprising both black and white delegates, which were mandated in former Confederate states as part of post-Civil War Reconstruction. Hence also: of or designating a faction of the Republican Party (active from the late 19th to mid 20th cent.) comprising both black and white members and advocating black equality; contrasted with lily-white adj. 2.
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1866 Daily News & Herald (Savannah, Georgia) 6 Sept. The Black-and-Tan Convention... The Conventionalists have been wrangling over the negro suffrage question.
1867 Boston Daily Advertiser 13 Nov. 1/8 He is by far the best orator..the black-and-tan party have sent into this state [sc. Mississippi].
1898 Convention of '98 (Democratic State Central Comm. Louisiana) 11/1 The convention was the beginning of reconstruction, under radical rule, and that black and tan convention set the heel of the negro despot upon the necks of the white people of this State for nearly ten years.
1905 C. W. Chesnutt Colonel's Dream ix. 74 Mo'over, he's not a ‘Black and Tan Republican’, but a ‘Lily White’.
1914 R. G. Usher Rise of Amer. People xxvii. 380 During the summer and fall of 1867, the elections were held and the ‘Black and Tan’ Conventions chosen, chiefly of Northern ‘carpet-baggers’, poor whites, and negroes.
1952 El Paso (Texas) Herald-Post 30 Apr. 5/1 A group of about 50 ‘lily white’ Republicans..broke up a bi-racial ‘black and tan’ party meeting.
1975 Amer. Jrnl. Econ. & Sociol. 34 424 Corbin, a Vermonter, had..participated in the framing of South Carolina's Black and Tan Constitution in 1868.
2003 D. L. Dickerson Reconstruction Era xvi. 209 Despite the charges by Southern whites that these ‘black and tan’ conventions were dominated by ‘unscrupulous Northern adventurers’, only 16 percent of the delegates were actually carpetbaggers.
b. Originally and chiefly U.S. slang. Designating a person of mixed race, esp. a person of mixed black and white descent; mixed-race. Now rare.
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1867 Maine Farmer 19 Dec. 2/6 Three out of four persons one sees in Pennsylvania Avenue, are black, or ‘black and tan’.
1897 Corr. rel. to Proposed Abolition of Aborigines Protection Board Western Austral. 78 The budding black-and-tan girl who, like many of her white sisters, thought more of her hat than her salvation.
1907 G. Bronson-Howard Norroy, Diplomatic Agent 188 A greasy-looking, black-and-tan man.
1925 E. A. Powell Map that is Half Unrolled x. 194 They not only accept with complacency these mixed unions but frequently bring up the black and tan children resulting from them as their own.
1934 R. Hardinge Gambia & Beyond vii. 64 I found that many of the British picture the French as semi-native, with a platoon of black ‘wives’ and an army corps of black-and-tan children.
c. U.S. slang. Designating a place visited or inhabited by both black and white people; spec. designating a saloon, nightclub, bar, etc., frequented by both black and white patrons (cf. sense B. 2c). Now historical.
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1890 J. A. Riis How Other Half Lives xiii. 156 The border-land where the white and black races meet in common debauch, the aptly-named black-and-tan saloon.
1918 Missionary Rev. Nov. 844 In the ‘black and tan’ sections of the cities he mixes with the worst sort of whites.
1922 Negro in Chicago (1923) (Chicago Comm. Race Relations) 323 ‘Black and Tan’ Resorts. The intimate association of Negroes and whites in the cabarets of the South Side has occasioned frequent and heated protests.
1952 J. Lait & L. Mortimer U.S.A. Confidential ii. xiii. 136 The black-and-tan Cotton Club runs all night, for white girls with Negro men.
1999 C. Smith Sutherland 10 The Sutherland is black and tan. That means we can both sit there and listen to music and won't nobody say shit.
2010 S. Pintoff Curtain Falls xii. 128 The Black and Tan district... MacDougal street had gained a reputation as a place were different races mixed freely.
B. n.
1. Any of various breeds of dog having black and tan colouring; a dog of such a breed; spec. (a) the black and tan terrier, a small British dog with a black back and tan-coloured face, flanks, and legs; (b) the black and tan coonhound, an American hunting dog with a smooth black coat and tan-coloured markings.
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the world > animals > mammals > group Unguiculata or clawed mammal > family Canidae > terrier > [noun]
terriera1425
earth dog1600
terrye1608
black and tan1844
1844 New Monthly Mag. 72 iii. 20 The door opened, and another visiter was introduced, who came waddling up to me. This was poor Tiny—a beautiful black-and-tan of the Blenheim breed.
1870 D. J. Kirwan Palace & Hovel (1963) xiii. 118 The dog-fancier may be noticed with..a black and tan under one arm and a spaniel under the other.
1884 Harper's Mag. Aug. 464/1 A jealous little black-and-tan stood by.
1911 J. A. Lytton Toy Dogs vi. 190 Black-and-tans when mated to Black-and-tans always show a tendency to produce white markings, and this comes from the original breed.
1951 Independent Jrnl. (San Rafael, Calif.) 3 May 16/1 Puppies, Dachshund, reds, black and tans. AKC registered.
2007 Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gaz. (Nexis) 20 Aug. Coonhounds come in six breeds—American black and tans, blueticks, English, redbones, treeing walkers and plotts.
2.
a. U.S. (originally derogatory). A member of a Republican Party faction active from the late 19th to the mid 20th cent., which comprised both black and white members and advocated black equality. Used chiefly in plural as a name for this faction. Frequently with capital initials.
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society > authority > rule or government > politics > American politics > [noun] > Republican Party > member or adherent of > type of
black and tan1867
half-breed1881
1867 Daily Arkansas Gaz. (Little Rock, Arkansas) 6 July The legislature which recently convened..denounced the radical party as the ‘negro party’, the ‘black and tans’, etc.
1894 San Antonio (Texas) Daily Light 13 June (heading) Cuney, leader of black and tans, a dead bird. His following knocked out by a grand lily white victory.
1922 Proc. Forty-first Ann. Session (Texas Bar Assoc.) App. B. 245 ‘Don't you know that he was a Black and Tan?’ And I said, ‘Well, Charley, all of you are damn Republicans—one is just as black with me as another.’
1952 Life 19 May 32/1 For years among Mississippi Republicans the ‘Lily Whites’, composed mostly of white men, have tried to wrest control of the state delegation to the G.O.P. national convention from the group in power, the ‘Black and Tans’, mostly Negro.
1989 N. R. McMillen Dark Journey (1990) ii. 69 Elsewhere in the region, urban white business leaders replaced old-line Black and Tans.
2009 R. J. Norrell Up from Hist. x. 239 The so-called Lily Whites..were challenged in most states by a faction of black Republicans and the few whites willing to ally with them—the Black-and-Tans.
b. Originally and chiefly U.S. slang. A person of mixed race, esp. a person of mixed black and white descent. Now usually considered offensive.
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1868 in H. Nathan D. Emmett & Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy (1962) 299 My lubs a brack and tan, jis like a cake ob taller.
1891 M. E. Ryan Pagan of Alleghanies 26 ‘Well, this ain't no duck quackin', Mister Hubbard,’ said the black-and-tan.
1910 E. Goodnow Market for Souls xii. 113 You know, Miss Smith, Ah ain't no time for black and tans myself. They ain't white and they ain't black, jest ornery.
1967 S. B. Day Music Box 54 I'm John and I'm white. I brought Sherryl to see the show tonight. I don't mind being the father of her Black and Tans, but my mother—well that's a different story. Wouldn't approve of it at all.
2002 H. Robbins Sin City (2003) 60 I don't think God made any more beautiful creatures than the black-and-tans that came out of black GIs screwing Japanese and Korean girls.
c. U.S. slang. A saloon, nightclub, bar, etc., frequented by both black and white patrons, esp. one with entertainment provided by black (and sometimes mixed-race) performers. Now historical.Earliest in the name of such an establishment.
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1887 G. W. Walling Recoll. N.Y. Chief of Police 486 It would not be difficult to say where the Black-and-Tan got its name. It is the resort of black men as well as white, but the girls are all white!
1927 S. Silverman in W. A. Page Behind Curtains Broadway Beauty Trust xx. 187 The Nest, Hoofer's Club and Club Bamville, all Harlem ‘black and tans’, also with atmosphere and novelty, unlike the regulation colored spots in Harlem for strictly white trade.
1934 Story Oct. 92 We visited a Negro cabaret and were thrown out when Creveling forced one of the mulatto entertainers to dance with him. We tried another black and tan.
1983 J. L. Collier Louis Armstrong (1985) xi. 122 As the perception grew that these black bandsmen and blues singers were not simply exotic entertainers but folk artists, a night at a black and tan could be considered a cultural event.
2009 C. C. Heap Slumming 199 Chorus lines of ‘tall, tan, and terrific’ women became regular features at the most popular black and tans, especially those that catered primarily to a white patronage.
3. slang. A drink consisting of a mix of porter (or stout) and ale.
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the world > food and drink > drink > intoxicating liquor > ale or beer > mixed drinks of ale or beer > [noun]
three-threads1698
pap-in1748
half-and-half1756
porter cup1790
shandygaff1853
mixed ale1864
cooper1871
black and tan1881
four-half1884
mother-in-law1884
shandy1888
smiler1892
mild-and-bitter1933
red-eye1960
1881 Puck (N.Y.) 6 July 305/1 Drink the cooling black and tan.
1889 in A. Barrère & C. G. Leland Dict. Slang Black-and-tan, half-and-half, porter and ale mixed.
1955 G. Freeman Liberty Man i. iv. 60 He asked for a pint of black and tan, and had to explain to the waiter what it was.
1958 A. Sillitoe Saturday Night & Sunday Morning vi. 93 Gin-and-orange? I'll have a black-and-tan.
1970 M. Palin Diary 22 Mar. in Python Years (2006) 20 A good little party. Black and Tan to drink.
2007 J. Glynn Seven Days Peter Crumb (2008) 225 Me and him, drunk on a bench after one too many black-and-tans.
4. In plural with capital initials. colloquial. An armed police force recruited by the British government and temporarily deployed in Ireland to counter republican activity during the Irish War of Independence (1919-21). Now historical.
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society > law > law enforcement > police force or the police > [noun] > policeman > other types of policeman
star1714
Special Constable1733
police runner1782
snoozy1823
New Policeman1830
redbreast1862
roundsman1868
state trooper1883
harness cop1891
black and tans1920
B Special1922
tans1932
1920 Times 30 Sept. 10/1 An official telegram to Dublin castle from Mallow states that several people have called at the barracks occupied by the ‘Black and Tans’ to thank them for their help in putting out the flames.
1921 Ld. Braye in Hansard Lords XLIV. 792 I rise to ask His Majesty's Government..whether they will..recall the Black and Tans.
1922 W. B. Yeats Lett. (1954) 680 The Black and Tans flogged young men and then tied them to their lorries by the heels.
1996 M. Hyndman Further Afield xxvii. 201 After the War he became a sergeant in the A specials and was responsible for a team of Black and Tans.
2006 Independent 21 Apr. 8/1 Although the Black and Tans force was deployed for only a couple of years..nationalist Ireland still associates it with murder, brutality, massacres and indiscipline in the years leading to southern Ireland's independence.
Derivatives
black-and-ˈtannery n. now historical the principles or activities of the Black and Tans (see sense B. 4).
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society > armed hostility > war > types of war > [noun] > guerrilla war > principles of
guerrillaism1865
guerrillaship1889
black-and-tannery1922
1922 K. Tynan Wandering Years xiv. 140 Here was Lloyd George and black-and-tannery again splitting Liberalism into two hostile camps.
1958 Spectator 8 Aug. 183/2 The only way would be a reversion to Black-and-tannery, to forcible coercion and repression.
1986 Guardian (Nexis) 17 Mar. Are we on our way back to Black and Tannery and ungovernability? That is what the IRA hope.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2011; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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adj.n.1786