out-Tarzan

English

Etymology

From out- +‎ Tarzan.

Verb

out-Tarzan (third-person singular simple present out-Tarzans, present participle out-Tarzaning, simple past and past participle out-Tarzaned)

  1. To perform better than the fictional character Tarzan, especialy at feats of athleticism.
    • 1926, Albert E. Bull, Authorship And Journalism, London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, page 49:
      One wishes to be anew Smollett; another, to out-Tarzan the chronicler of apes.
    • 1938 July 10, The Sun, Sydney, page 7, column 4:
      "Robin Hood" is melodrama - roistering, rowdy, swasbuckling melodrama, that brings back a whiff of the dear old pit where one sat in one's 'teens, and a taste of old peanuts as well as nostalgia, and almost forces a cheer when Errol out-Tarzan's Tarzan or plays quarter-staff with Little John.
    • 1940 November 17, The Sunday Times, Perth, page 7, column 1:
      Mature is the husky who out-Tarzaned Tarzan in "50.000.000 B-C."
    • 1943 May 30, The Sunday Times, Perth, page 8, column 3:
      They are Chicago bus drivers who take to the sea on a yacht, and end up by out-tarzaning Tarzan on an uncharted south sea island populated by hundreds of beautiful girls, a platoon of villains and more wild animals than are caged in the average zoo.
    • 1986, Roy Harris, The Origin of Writing, London: Duckworth, page 12:
      In one sense Sequoyah out-Tarzaned Tarzan; but in another sense, unlike Tarzan, he merely copied others.
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