Tartarum

Use in the book

The passage offers a clear example of the dictionary’s movement between natural and medical vocabularies. The shared name helps explain the analogy, while the named sites remain different. A reader should establish whether the surrounding discussion concerns wine, a prepared material, or the human body before deciding which sense is active.

Several cross-references sharpen the distinction. Samech is simply referred to tartar, so that short synonym leaves the contextual choice open. Sal taberzet is the whitest tartar, adding a particular quality within the category. Saxifraga and Serpheta describe agents by effects attributed to them on stone or gravel; those therapeutic claims do not make their materials themselves tartar.

Realgar supplies another explicit extension between domains. There the dictionary calls the bodily application metaphorical. Here it says the name is often taken for bodily deposits. The different wording should be respected: the parallel helps explain a habit of language without proving that the compiler intended precisely the same kind of relation in both entries.

Places to read

1. TartarumRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
2. RealgarA mineral term extended metaphorically to harmful bodily matter.
3. Sal taberzetA tartar distinguished by its exceptional whiteness.
4. SamechA historical synonym for tartar.

In this edition

Tartar modernises the English form while the Latin headword remains findable. Hard, saltish and adhering are retained because they are the source’s identifying features. The medical use is explained as historical vocabulary, with no new diagnosis or treatment inferred from it.