Tanglefoot
noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Low-quality whiskey, especially home-brewed. US, archaic, colloquial, uncountable
"They never seemed to want anything, even at the sutler's store, though the Lord knows there wasn't much there they could want except tanglefoot and tobacco."
- 2 A sticky substance put at the base of trees or other plants to trap insects and prevent them from climbing up. uncountable
"Instruments called "hopperdozers" were invented, which had receptacles filled with hot tar, and were driven over the ground to catch them as flies are caught with tanglefoot paper, and many millions of them were destroyed in this way, but it was about as effectual as fighting a Northwestern blizzard with a lady's fan, and they were all abandoned as useless and powerless to cope with the scourge."
Example
More examples"They never seemed to want anything, even at the sutler's store, though the Lord knows there wasn't much there they could want except tanglefoot and tobacco."
Etymology
From tangle + foot.
More for "tanglefoot"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.