tanglefoot

English

Etymology

From tangle +‎ foot.

Noun

tanglefoot (uncountable)

1. (US, archaic, colloquial) Low-quality whiskey, especially home-brewed.
   • 1891, Charles King, Starlight Ranch‎^[1]:

     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.

   • 1906, Charles King, Tonio, Son of the Sierras‎^[2]:

     But Dooley's Irish blood was up, five fingers of tanglefoot tingling in each fist and bubbling in his brain.

   • 1917, Various, Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the‎^[3]:

     In the following year blight appeared again, but at another point, and after cutting it out I put on tanglefoot, simply because I happened to have some with me when passing the tree.

2. A sticky substance put at the base of trees or other plants to trap insects and prevent them from climbing up.
   • 1900, Charles E. Flandrau, The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier‎^[4]:

     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.

   • 1916, Various, Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916‎^[5]:

     The Entomologist has every reason to be thankful that, early last spring, he laid in a supply of arsenate of lead, Black Leaf No. 40, commercial lime-sulphur, tree tanglefoot, tobacco dust, also providing himself with an abundance of air-slaked lime and a spraying outfit suitable for use in a small experiment garden and orchard at Lake Minnetonka.

   • 1998 October 30, David A. Holway et al., “Loss of Intraspecific Aggression in the Success of a Widespread Invasive Social Insect”, in Science‎^[6], volume 282, number 5390, →DOI, pages 949–952:

     We reared experimental colonies in plastic nest containers (30 cm by 14 cm by 8 cm) lined with fluon and tanglefoot to prevent ants from escaping.