tarball

English

Etymology

From tar +‎ ball.

Noun

tarball (plural tarballs)

1. A ball of tar or crude oil found on a beach.
   • 1969, Hearings By United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary

     All of us who have been to the beaches this year have encountered tarballs that stick to our feet and mess up our rugs.

2. (computing) A file that is an archive of several other files, created using the Unix tar utility.

Verb

tarball (third-person singular simple present tarballs, present participle tarballing, simple past and past participle tarballed)

1. (transitive, computing) To archive into a tarball.