[Ads-l] Tarmac WAS RE: "antedate" for _pothole_ (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill CIV (US)]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

> 
> 1882:  tarmacadam:  A mixed material for making roads, consisting of
> some kind of broken stone or ironstone slag in a matrix of tar alone,
> or of tar with some mixture of pitch or creosote.
> 
> Presumably an improvement over the original.  That is, tar + Macadam's
> "a consolidated subsoil, only slightly cambered, on which were laid two
> layers of cleaned, uniformly small pieces of broken stone".  "macadam"
> dates from 1824.
> 
> Also, asphalt was used to pave streets as early as 1847 (sense 2.a.).
> 

I was familiar with both "tarmac" (surface of a runway or apron) and macadam for a long time before I knew that one word came from the other.

The OED has 1903 for Tarmac as a brand name, but nothing until 1919 for the airfield sense.

9/21/1917 Klamath Falls OR _Evening Herald_ p 3 col 4
"As the first rays of the sun light up the aerodrome the machines are wheeled out on the "Tarmac," oiled and attuned for the morning's flight."

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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