1602. Dekker, Honest Whore. Ipocras, there then, here's a teston for you, you snake.
1605. Chapman, Eastward Ho, i. 1. Wipe thy bum with testones, and make ducks and drakes with shillings.
1608. Day, Law Trickes, iii. Win, prethee give the Fidler a testar and send him packing.
1611. Tarleton, Jests. Tarlton, seeing himself so over-reacht, greatly commended the beggers wit, and withall, in recompence thereof, gave him a TEASTER.
1613. Fletcher, Honest Mans Fort., iii. 3. There's a tester . . . now I am a wooer, I must be bounteful.
1633. Heywood, Eng. Traveller, iv. 5, 226 (Mermaid). Let not a tester scape To be consumed in rot-gut.
1636. Davenant, Wits, i. 1. To-**gether with his wife's bracelet of mill-**TESTERS.
1698. Farquhar, Love and a Bottle, i. Who throws away a tester and a mistress loses sixpence.
1709. Swift, Polite Conversations, i. They say he that has lost his wife and sixpence has lost a tester.
1822. Lamb, Chimney Sweepers. If it be starving weather . . . thy humanity will surely rise to a tester.
1822. Scott, Fort. Nigel, xxvii. Dr R. who buckles beggars for a tester.
Tetbury Portion, subs. phr. (old).—See quot, and cf. White-**CHAPEL TIPPERARY, and ROCHESTER portion, etc.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Tetbury portion. A . . . and a clap.
Teviss, subs, (coster).—A shilling: see Rhino.
Texas, subs. (American).—The upper (or third) deck of a Mississippi steamboat. Hence Texas-TENDER = a waiter serving on the TEXAS.
1875. Clemens [Atlantic Monthly, Tan. and Feb.]. The boiler deck, the hurricane deck, and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented with white railings.
Ibid. We had a tidy, white-aproned, black texas-tender to bring up tarts and ices and coffee during mid-watch day and night.
1877. Hale, Adv. Pullman, 45. His companion joined him, pausing a minute on the step-ladder which leads to the pilot-house from the roof of the texas.
Thames. Setting the Thames on fire, phr. (old).—A simile for the impossible: see quots.
1363. Langland, Piers Plowman. C. vii. 335. Wickede dedes Fareth as a fonk of fuyr that ful a-myde temese. [Wicked deeds fare as a spark of fire that falleth into the Thames.]
1546. Heywood, Proverbs. 'As well cast water in tems as give him alms.'
1672. Ray, Proverbs. 'Joculatory Proverbs.' I care no more for it than a goose-turd for the Thames.
1777. Foote, Trip to Calais. He Won't SET FIRE TO THE THAMES.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Thames. He will not find out a way to set the Thames on fire; he will not make any wonderful discoveries, he is no conjuror.
1868. Brewer, Phrase and Fable, s.v. Thames. An active man would ply the temse so quickly as to set fire to the wooden hoop at the bottom; but a lazy fellow would never set the temse on fire. The play on the word temse has given rise to many imitations: as, He will never set the Seine on fire (the French seine=a drag-net).
1884. Notes and Queries, 6 S., ix. 14 (Correspondent). To a practical man a grain-riddle firing would sound most absurd. If you say to a Lancashire labourer,' Tha'll ne'er set th' tems afire,' a hundred to one he would understand the River Thames. Ibid. (Editorial). The ordinarily accepted supposition is that it is equivalent to saying that an idle fellow will not accomplish a miracle.
Tharborough. See Third-**borough.
Thary, verb, (tramps').—To speak.
1891. Carew, Auto. Gipsy, 412. You sonnied the bloke as tharied you jist as the rattler was startin'. Ibid., 419. I grannied some of what you were a-tharyin' to your cousin.
