Other forms: tattoos
A tattoo is a permanent picture inked into the skin. A needle, pigment under the surface, and no easy way back.
The word came into English from Polynesian languages in the eighteenth century, brought home by sailors along with the practice. It works as a verb, and the person who does it is a tattooist or tattoo artist. There is a completely separate and older sense, since a military tattoo is a display of marching and music in the evening, and the Edinburgh Tattoo is the best known of them.
1nountattooA permanent design made by putting ink under the skin.
“He had a small tattoo on his forearm.”
2noundisplayAn evening display of military music and marching.
“They went to the tattoo at the castle.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
The tattoo that means an evening display of military music is Dutch. Taptoe is literally tap shut: the drumbeat that told innkeepers to close the casks and send the soldiers back.
From earlier tattaow, tattow, a borrowing from a poz-pol - language, e.g. sm tatau (“tattoo; to tap, to strike”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA