1. tar and feather A sick contrivance from the Unix tar command and the Ku Klux Klan torture method To create a transportable archive from a group of files by first sticking them together with tar the Tape ARchiver and then compressing the result. The latter action is dubbed "feathering" purely for contrived effect by analogy to what you do with an aeroplane propeller to decrease wind resistance, or with an oar to reduce water resistance; smaller files, after all, slip through comm links more easily. [Jargon File]
tar and feather | tar-and-feather | tarred-and-feathered |
