The Tattoo Dictionary: An A-Z guide to the secret language of tattoos

by Trent Aitken-Smith, Ashley Tyson

Discover the true meanings behind over 200 popular tattoos with this comprehensive book, illustrated with over 100 tattoo designs. From sailors' swallows and Mexican skulls to prisoners' barbed wire and intricate Maori patterns, tattoos have been used as a means of communication by cultures all over the world for thousands of years. Through meticulous research, The Tattoo Dictionary uncovers the fascinating origins of the most popular symbols in tattoo history, revealing their hidden meanings and the long-forgotten stories behind them. This beautifully packaged book is an inspiring look at tattoo culture, and an indispensable guide to choosing your own tattoo.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, Reference

257 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 8, 2016

Reviews

[Peter Derk · Rating 2 out of 5]

I made it through to the K's before stopping.

Here's the thing: when the book is telling you about tattoos, it's pretty interesting. The secret language of tattoos, the traditions, and so on. But when you get to an entry like "cross" and it tells you an extremely abbreviated version of what the meaning of the cross is, no thanks. I think most of us are aware it's a jesus thing. I came here to learn about the history of tattoos, not the history of the objects being tattooed on people. Which sounds like an unimportant division, but it's totally important.

For example, in the entry on jesus, you learn that there's a story, possibly apocryphal, that sailors would have jesus tattooed on their backs so if they were getting a beating or being whipped, the punisher might see the face of jesus and go easy on them. THAT is interesting.

Telling me what Ganesha is all about while not really talking about the meaning of tattoos of Ganesha? Or telling me what a Celtic knot is without really mentioning tattoos? Pass.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Once again a low-scoring review on my part is mainly due to a mismatch between my expectations and the actual product. By the end of the first page I had realized that this A.) was not written in as scholarly a tone as I had guessed it would be but more importantly B.) did not have an illustration for every entry. After three or four pages I started flipping in disbelief like, "You're going to sit here and write about all these dozens (hundreds?) of types of skin art and spend time describing them when a simple illustration would suffice?"

Mark this down as the first time I've thought, "This book doesn't have enough pictures."

If I'd taken the time to flip through it at the library (instead of grabbing it from the patron request shelf and heading straight out the door) I wouldn't have bothered checking it out.

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Half arsed.

I wanted more. More history. More intricacies. Expand on what the positions and colours of the koi mean. Some of the entires were vague as fuck. The author makes Russian criminal tattooing sound fascinating and then doesn't expand on it.

[Angela Vas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty decent book. The artwork was bold and simple. It covers the basic meanings behind the most popular tattoos.

[Morad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some parts are nice but all in all, this reads lazy (even has typos), with minimum effort, research. Feels like a money-grabber off tattoo lovers more than a contribution to the art.

[Dave Shichman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, but I think more pictures would be helpful. Better use of the open space, and more informative.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A neat little book covering the very basics of tattooing. More illustrations wouldn't hurt!

[Hadeer هَدِير · Rating 4 out of 5]

All these diversity of tattoos made me realize how much every single one can tell you about the wearer. Indeed, the mere fact that someone has a tattoo is an insightful mark of their personality.
Interestingly most tattoos are associated with good luck and are worn in the sense of protection, bringing charm, or even warding off bad fortune. This highlights the trait of humans who, by nature, have the tendency to seek comfort and security by placing trust in certain beliefs or symbols.

[Fabio Mologni · Rating 1 out of 5]

Quite superficial. For instance, the political meaning of the Celtic cross is not even discussed, the Māori tattoos are barely mentioned. Yet, there are entries for the deck of cards, the Angel... bah

[M · Rating 2 out of 5]

A comprehensive western collection of imagery and definitely one of the most beautiful books (as an object) I have come across this year: The hardcover, the paper, the layout and the limited colour palette was a pleasure to hold, sniff, and look at. I especially liked the palette of black, white and red - a really lovely nod to traditional American tattoos. 

However the below average rating is because of how it was written: it was clumsy and I could hear the writers inexperience with written language (that's not to say inexperience with tattoo symbolism). I wish this book has been co-written or had a more heavy hand when it came to editing. I could not un-hear the writers very specific voice with its sweaping statements, misplaced jokes and underlying sexist ignorance. 

I am gifting this book to a tattoo fan having now read it, but giving it as a beautiful art object with much left to be desired from the written contents.

[Andrew Shaffer]

A well-made, beautiful book. There aren’t illustrations for every entry, though, and the entries themselves are very basic — as another reviewer on here said, it’s not a scholarly work.

[Nadanael · Rating 3 out of 5]

As some others peoples say, it can be interresting for a step to understand the symbols ' hystory but not much more :/
Still quite interresting

[LDN · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a lot of ideas, most are missing

[Kirsty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate that this would be a difficult book to write given that a tattoo could have any meaning to its wearing, regardless of it's popularity for a single meaning. However, this book had a tendency to just say things like 'this tattoo has various meanings' and leave it at that. There were also plenty of tattoos that just said 'See: here' and referred to a different tattoo. Why even include it at that point? I agree it would've been nice to have a picture for each tattoo (and mix up the styles). Additionally, while there were certainly entries I enjoyed I feel like the author tried too hard to find "meaning" in tattoos that either don't have them or can't be pin-pointed to one, which again, led to the question of why they were even included. The author also had a habit of just describing what the tattoo is (for example, a wolf, or a cross, or a lion) instead of actually linking it to tattooing and different reasons it might be chosen in different placements, etc. There were then entries that seeming had a lot more to talk about but would end abruptly, maybe as to not bore the reader, or - my guess - to make room for as many entries as possible, leading to repetitive sounding descriptions simply saying the tattoo being described had no recorded history and could mean various things without examples given. Overall, I enjoyed some entries and do think the book itself is beautifully presented, but many improvements could've been made, in my personal opinion.

[Jeannine Morin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trent has done his homework when it comes to the tattoo world. Many get tattoos because of popularity purposes, but all artwork has a price. Alot of people fake their tattoos, and I believe there are demons for that. The tattoo has been described throughout time as the mark of the soul, are you ready to mark yourself permanently? Tattoos were not supposed to be conversational pieces, or for popularity purposes, but a right of passage, or an initiation, or a reward. I've always felt the importance of tattoos, especially when I started getting them at 14, I knew that it had to have specific meaning, nothing random, but sometimes it can have more meaning to your subconscious than your conscious mind could gather at the time.
I don't believe in random artwork, I believe in intelligence and the story behind the artwork is of great importance. I found this book to be educational and well documented, but I do believe that there are some things left unsaid, and held different meanings. I believe that tattoos are have occult meaning to them as well, and that information is hidden between the lines.

[vino4d · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book contains 200 popular tattoos and its meaning. Somemost of it you may already know such as yin yang, lion, tiger, 666, skull, anchor, eagle, peace sign, sun, moon, star, compass, kanji, cross, script, zodiac, barcode, etc.. what I saw here new was various religious tattoos, biker gang tattoos, criminal gang tattoos and some traditional tattoos like runes, Maori, tribal tattoos. And also the meaning of the tattoos.

But it doesn't cover any latest and modern designs because it was published on 2016, thats 8 years ago from today

A good book to know about the POPULAR tattoos and the catalogue for picking tattoo design.

[Korn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good writing on symbols. Sometime can be a bit too shallow on some topic. I wished there are more illustrations.

[Alyssa DeLeon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Used this for school...good info!

[Matt Roebuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting read

[Zala · Rating 3 out of 5]

beautiful cover, but misses illustrations and some of the meanings of the designs it mentions (medusa as a symbol of surviving sexual assault for example)

[Audra Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can pick up and put down whenever, had religious stuff in it but from an unbiased perspective and was purely factual for the tattoos history’s.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good starting place to learn about tattoo symbolism!

[Ace · Rating 4 out of 5]

it was helpfull