tare - verb

[Benjamin Barrett]

On Dec 27, 2011, at 4:16 PM, Alice Faber wrote:

> On 12/27/11 7:12 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>> Whole Foods has signs saying "tare it up," meaning to weigh your empty containers that you bring from home before filling them up with bulk foods.
>>
>> Being this is a pun, I don't take it too seriously, but the OED does have this use with citations ranging from 1812 to 1890. Google Books indicates that this has continued in common use up until the present day, at least in technical contexts; perhaps Whole Foods and the green movement will spur this into popular use.
>>
>
> Almost all of the promo copy I've seen in ads for digital food scales
> (also used in various crafts), refers to the "tare" function. This one
> is very similar to the one I bought over 10 years ago.
> <http://www.amazon.com/EatSmart-Precision-Digital-Kitchen-Silver/dp/B001N07KUE>
> The third feature in the product description is "Tare feature eliminates
> the weight of a plate; 3 Minute Auto-Shutoff lets you prepare
> ingredients while maintaining battery life".

I think I had a part-time job at one point where I used a scale. My recollection is we used the expression "zero (it) out," referring to the scale. The OED doesn't include this meaning for "zero out" only for "zero" (and "zeroize" which strikes me as purely technical).

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

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