You hear it tossed around, often casually: "He's tatted up." Or maybe, "She's got a tatted arm." It’s a phrase that’s become pretty common, especially in certain circles, and it’s not hard to figure out what it points to. At its heart, "tatted up" is just a more informal, sometimes more emphatic, way of saying someone has tattoos. Think of it as the verbal equivalent of a full sleeve, a chest piece, or a collection of art adorning someone's skin.
Looking at how it’s used, it often implies more than just a single, small design. The "up" in "tatted up" suggests a degree of coverage, a significant presence of tattoos. It can mean someone is extensively tattooed, perhaps all over their arms, back, or even more. It’s a descriptor that paints a picture of someone adorned with permanent ink.
Interestingly, the word "tat" itself has a few different meanings. There's the craft of tatting, which involves making intricate lace with a shuttle. Then there's a more technical, biological meaning related to a protein produced by viruses like HIV. But when we talk about people and their appearance, the slang meaning of "tat" as a tattoo, and by extension "tatted up" as having many tattoos, is the one that’s really stuck.
It’s become so commonplace that in many professions, particularly in sports, being "tatted up" is now the norm rather than the exception. It’s a visual language, a form of self-expression that’s moved from the fringes to the mainstream. So, the next time you hear someone described as "tatted up," you can picture someone with a significant amount of artistic ink decorating their skin, a walking canvas of personal stories and aesthetics.
