tar and feather

tar
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friars and nuns" [OED], but not until 1769 was the verbal phrase attested.

COLLAPSE

tar   (tär)  Pronunciation Key  A dark, oily, viscous material, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons, produced by the destructive distillation of organic substances such as wood, coal, or peat. See coal tar. A solid, sticky substance that remains when tobacco is burned. It accumulates in the lungs of smokers and is considered carcinogenic.

tar and feather definition

jargon
(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]
(1997-05-26)

tar and feather

Criticize severely, punish, as in The traditionalists often want to tar and feather those who don't conform. This expression alludes to a former brutal punishment in which a person was smeared with tar and covered with feathers, which then stuck. It was first used as a punishment for theft in the English navy, recorded in the Ordinance of Richard I in 1189, and by the mid-1700s had become mob practice. The figurative usage dates from the mid-1800s.