TOG, to dress, or equip with an outfit; “TOGGED out to the nines,”
dressed in the first style.
TOGS, clothes; “Sunday TOGS,” best clothes. One of the oldest cant
words, in use in the time of Henry VIII.
TOGERY, clothes, harness, domestic paraphernalia of any kind.
TOKE, dry bread.
TOL-LOL, or TOL-LOLISH, tolerable, or tolerably.
TOMMY.—_See_ DICKEY.
TOMMY, bread,—generally a penny roll.
TOMMY, a truck, barter, the exchange of labour for goods, not money.
Both term and practice general among English operatives for half-a
century.
TOMMY-MASTER, one who pays his workmen in goods, or gives them tickets
upon tradesmen, with whom he shares the profit.
TOMMY SHOP, where wages are generally paid to mechanics or others, who
are expected to “take out” a portion of the money in goods.
TOM-TOM, a street instrument, a small kind of drum beaten with
the fingers, somewhat like the ancient tabor; a performer on
this instrument. It was imported, doubtless, with the _Nigger_
melodies,—TOM-TOMS being a favourite instrument with the darkies.
TONGUED, talkative; “to TONGUE a person,” _i.e._, talk him down.
TOOL, “a poor TOOL,” a bad hand at anything.
TOOL, to drive a mail coach.
TOOL, to pick pockets.
TOOLER, a pickpocket. MOLL-TOOLER, a female pickpocket.
TOOTH, “he has cut his eye TOOTH,” _i.e._, he is sharp enough, or
old enough, to be so; “up in the TOOTH,” far advanced in age,—said
often of old maids. _Stable term_ for aged horses which have lost the
distinguishing mark in their teeth.
TOPHEAVY, drunk.
TOPPED, hung or executed.
TOP-SAWYER, the principal of a party, or profession. “A TOP-SAWYER,
signifies a man that is a master genius in any profession. It is a
piece of _Norfolk_ slang, and took its rise from Norfolk being a great
timber county, where the _top_ sawyers get double the wages of those
beneath them.”—_Randall’s Diary_, 1820.
TOPS, dying speeches and gallows broadsides.
TOPSY-TURVY, the bottom upwards. _Grose_ gives an ingenious etymology
of this once cant term, viz., “_top-side turf-ways_,”—turf being always
laid the wrong side upwards.
TO-RIGHTS, excellent, very well, or good.
TORPIDS, the second-class race-boats at Oxford, answering to the
Cambridge SLOGGERS.
TOSHERS, men who steal copper from ships’ bottoms in the Thames.
TOSS, a measure of sprats.
TOUCHED, slightly intoxicated.
TOUCHER, “as near as a TOUCHER,” as near as possible without actually
touching.—_Coaching term._ The old jarveys, to show their skill, used
to drive against things so close as absolutely to _touch_, yet without
injury. This they called a TOUCHER, or, TOUCH AND GO, which was hence
applied to anything which was within an ace of ruin.
TOUCHY, peevish, irritable. _Johnson_ terms it a low word.