All 4 Uses of

tartar

in

Moby Dick

The helmsman who steered by that tiller in a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by clutching its jaw.†
Chpt 16-18

to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash from out their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are flanked by ancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried lines of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same woods harboring wild Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give robes to Tartar Emperors; they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and Cleveland, as well as Winnebago villages; they float alike the full-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, and the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are, for out o†
Chpt 52-54

He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet recovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the final spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow.†
Chpt 85-87

Definitions:

(1) (tartar as in: tartar on the teeth)
calcified deposits on the teeth, formed by the continuous presence of dental plaque (also called calculous)
(2) (meaning too common or rare to warrant focus)
Do not confuse this with the proper noun, Tartar, which references a central Asian people once known for their ferocity in battle.

The expression tartar sauce refers to a mayonnaise-based sauce commonly served with seafood and sometimes spelled tartare sauce. You may also see steak tartar in reference to a ground beef dish that is eaten raw; though the preferred spelling of the dish is steak tartare.

Much more rarely, tartar can reference anyone with a bad temper, or it can reference a reddish crust or sediment in wine casks.