tacamahac a (takamahaka)

See taca mahac, 1. tac-au-tac (tak'ō-tak'), n. [F., a phrase equiv. to E. tick - tack, imitative of the sound of fine blades tapping against one another; cf. E. tick - tack1.] In fencing, the combination of a sharp, rattling parry and a riposte, in contradistinction to a riposte delivered from a position of quiet touch with an opponent's blade; also, contre-ripostes, a set of attacks tac-au-tac and parries rapidly following one another between two fencers of very equal skill, prolonged without a point to the credit of either. The tac-au-tac in the latter sense is practised by masters to give pupils quickne of eye and supplene of wrist, and to accustom them to close play. Tacca (tak'ä), n. [NL. (Forster, 1776), from the Malay name.] A genus of plants, type of the order Taccaceæ, distinguished by its fruit, which is a berry, commonly three-angled or six-ribbed. It comprises nine tropical species, of which three are American, the others of the Old World. They are perennial herbs from a tuberous or creeping rootstock, with large radical leaves which are entire, lobed, or di ected, and a dense umbel of brown, lurid, or greenish flowers terminating an erect leafle scape, and involucrate with an exterior row of herbaceous or colored bracts. The numerous inner bracts are long, filiform, and pendulous, and have been erroneously regarded as sterile pedicels. T. pinnatifid a, the piaplant or Otaheite salep plant, yields a nutritious starch, the South Sea arrowroot. (See pia2.) Its leafstalks are boiled and eaten in China and Cochin China; in Tahiti they are dried and plaited into bonnets. Other species, thought to be valuable as starch-plants, occur in Australia, India, Madagascar, Guinea, and Guiana. Several species were formerly separated as a genus Ataccia (K. B. Presl, 1830), having entire leaves and a spreading perianth. Flowering Plant of Tacca pin- natifida. a, a flower; b, transverse section of the fruit. Taccaceæ (ta-kā sē-ē), n. pl. [NL. (Lindley, 1835 ),