Other forms: tarts
A tart is an open pastry case with a sweet or savoury filling. A jam tart, a lemon tart, a treacle tart.
The defining feature is that it has no lid — a pie has a top and a tart does not. Tartlets are the small ones, and a flan is much the same thing under a French name. There is also an adjective tart, meaning sharply sour: a tart apple, and by extension sharp in manner: a tart reply. Note that tart is also an old British insult for a woman, best avoided entirely.
1nountartAn open pastry case with a filling.
“She baked a strawberry tart for the summer party.”
2adjectivesharplySharply sour, or sharp in manner.
“The apples are tart and make far better pies.”
tart is a pastry, or a sharpness.
The pastry word comes from Old French tarte, of uncertain origin. The adjective is a different word, from Old English teart, meaning sharp or severe — so the tartness of a lemon tart is a coincidence of spelling.
Proto-Germanic
*tartaz — rough, sharp, tearing
Proto-West Germanic
*tart
Old English
teart — sharp, rough, severe
Middle English
tart
English, today
tart
From Middle English tart, from Old English teart (“sharp, rough, severe”), from Proto-West Germanic tart, from Proto-Germanic tartaz (“rough, sharp, tearing”), from Proto-Germanic teraną (“to tear”), from Proto-Indo-European der- (“to flay, split, cleave”). Related to Scots tairt (“tart; tartness”), Dutch tarten (“to defy, challenge, mock”), German trotzen (“to defy, brave, mock”), perhaps Albanian thartë (“sour, acid, sharp”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA