Toasting-fork (or -iron), subs. phr. (military).—A sword (Grose): also cheese-toaster (q.v.).
1596. Shakspeare, King John, iv. 3. Put up thy sword betime; Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron, That you shall think the devil is come from hell.
1849-50. Thackeray, Pendennis, xxii. I served in Spain with the king's troops, until the death of my dear friend Zumalcarreguy, when I saw the game was over, and hung up my toasting-iron.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, xli. If I had given him time to get at his other pistol, or his toasting-fork, it was all up.
1900. Boothby, Maker of Nations, ix. One of the officers drew his sword . . . 'You can put up that toasting-fork,' said Durrington, coolly.
Toasty, adj. (artists').—Warmly
tinted.
Tobaccanalian (Tobacconer
or Tobacchian), subs. (old).—A
smoker. Also tobacconing
= smoking.
1615. Sylvester, Tobacco Battered, s.v.
1621. Venner, Treat. Tobacco (1637), 411. You may observe how idle and foolish they are, that cannot travell without a tobacco pipe at their mouth; but such (I must tell you) are no base tobacchians: for this manner of taking the fume, they suppose to bee generous.
d.1656. Hall, Hard Measure [Century]. Musketeers, waiting for the major's return, drinking and tobacconing as freely as if it [the Cathedral] had turned alehouse.
1854-5. Thackeray, Newcomes, xxv. We get very good cigars for a bajoccho and a half—that is, very good for us cheap tobaccanalians.
See Pipe.
Toby (or Tober), subs. (Old
Cant).—1. The road; the highway.
Whence high-toby = a
main road; the toby (toby-lay
or toby-concern) = highway
robbery (see quot. 1785);
toby-gill (or toby-man) = a
road thief; hightobyman = a
mounted highwayman, lowtobyman
= a footpad; to toby
= to rob on the highway; and
done for a toby = convicted
for highway robbery. Cf. gypsy
tober = road.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. The toby applies exclusively to robbing on horseback; the practice of footpad robbery being properly called the spice, though it is common to distinguish the former by the title of high-toby, and the latter of low-toby.
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford. You are a capital fellow . . . the bravest and truest gill that ever took to the toby. Ibid. All the most fashionable prigs, or toby-men, sought to get him into their set.
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood (1884), 95. Believe me, there is not a game, my brave boys, To compare with the game of high toby; No rapture can equal the toby-man's joys.
2. (showmen's).—A pitch for a travelling show.
1893. Standard, 29 Jan., 2. We have to be out in the road early, you know, to secure our 'Toby.'
3. (old: eighteenth century).—A drinking jug or mug: usually a grotesque figure of an old man in a three-cornered hat.
1840. Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, iv. A . . . jug of well-browned clay, fashioned into the form of an old gentleman. 'Put Toby this way, my dear.' This Toby was the brown jug.
4. (venery).—The female pudendum: see Monosyllable.
1678. Cotton, Virgil Travestie (1770), 57. That Fame and Honour she may go by, And let Æneas firk her Toby.
Toby-trot, subs. phr. (common).
A simpleton (Halliwell).—*
