What does tarmacked mean?
Tarmacked means covered or paved with tarmac, a durable dark surface made from aggregate bound with a bituminous material. The word is especially familiar from descriptions of roads, airfields, parking areas, and the paved aprons around airport terminals, although it can apply to any suitably surfaced area. As a verb, tarmacked is the past tense and past participle of tarmac, meaning to apply this paving material to a surface. It belongs mainly to British and infrastructure-related English; in everyday American usage, asphalt is generally the more familiar term for the material and asphalted the more usual adjective. Tarmacked also has a memorable etymological history. Its name combines tar with macadam, itself a form of stone paving associated with the Scottish road builder John Loudon McAdam. The resulting word neatly distinguishes a surface made with a tarmac-style paving process from one merely covered with tar.
Covered or paved with tarmac.
"Passengers waited beside the tarmacked terminal apron."
Common in British English and in civil-engineering and aviation contexts.
To cover a surface with tarmac; the past tense and past participle of tarmac.
"The crew tarmacked the parking area over the weekend."
Often used in reports and descriptions of road or airfield work.
Tarmac compresses an entire paving tradition into one word: tar meets macadam.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does tarmacked come from?
Tarmac was formed in twentieth-century British usage by blending tar with macadam. Macadam denotes crushed-stone paving associated with the Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam, whose surname supplied the word's second element. The blend referred to a road-paving material and later came to mean the material itself as well as the process of surfacing a road or other area with it.
Related word forms
How tarmacked is actually used
Tarmacked is especially associated with British English and with aviation and civil-engineering contexts. American English more often uses asphalted, although tarmacked remains understandable and is used internationally.
Easily confused with tarmacked
A tarmacked surface is paved with tarmac, whereas a tarred surface has been coated with tar.