- chausen: also traveller's-tale
and traveller's talent (Grose).
1760-62. Smollett, Greaves, vi. Aha! dost thou tip me the traveller, my boy?
Travelling-piquet, subs. phr.
(old).—'A mode of amusement,
practised by two persons riding
in a carriage, each reckoning
towards his game the persons or
animals that pass by on the side
next them, according to the
following estimation:—A parson
riding on a gray horse, with blue
furniture—game; an old woman
under a hedge—ditto; a cat
looking out of a window—60;
a man, woman, and child in a
buggy—40; a man with a woman
behind him—30; a flock of sheep—20;
a flock of geese—10; a
postchaise—5; a horseman—2;
a man or woman walking—1'
(Grose).
Travelling Scholarship, subs.
phr. (University).—Rustication
(q.v.).
1794. Gent. Mag., 1085. Soho, Jack! almost presented with a travelling scholarship? very nigh being sent to grass, hey?
Travelling Tradesman, subs.
phr. (common).—A respectable
mechanic in search of work.
Traverse. See Cart and Tom
Cox's Transverse.
Traviata. See Come.
Tray, adj. (thieves').—Three:
spec. three months' imprisonment;
tray soddy mits = threepence
halfpenny. [It. tre, soldi,
mezza.]
1897. Marshall, Pomes, 71. And the magistrate who interviewed her left but very little doubt That the moons she'd have to do would be a tray.
Before one can say trey-ace, phr. (old).—In a moment.
Tray Trip, subs. phr. (old).—An
ancient game like Scotch hop (or
Hopscotch), played on a pavement,
marked out in chalk into
different compartments.
Treacle, subs. (common).—1.
Thick inferior port.
2. (common). Love-making, spooning (q.v.). Treacle-moon = the honeymoon.
Treacle Bolly. See Bolly.
Treacle-sleep, subs. phr. (colloquial).—See
quot.
1849. Carlyle [Froude, Life in London, viii.]. I fell first into a sluggish torpor, then into treacle-sleep, and so lay sound.
Treacle Town, subs. phr. (common).—1.
Bristol: the city is
an important centre of the sugar-refining
industry. Also (2) =
Macclesfield: in allusion to a
hogshead of treacle which burst,
and, for a time, filled the gutters.
Treacle-wag, subs. phr. (provincial).—Very
small beer.
Tread (or Treadle), subs. (conventional).—The
act of kind,
properly of birds: as verb (or to
chuck a tread) = to copulate:
see Ride. Treading = copulation;
tread-fowl = a cock-bird;
and treddle = a whore ('a cant
term'—Halliwell).
1383. Chaucer, Cant. Tales, 'Monk's Tale,' Prol., 57. Thow woldest han been a tredefowel aright.
1594. Shakspeare, 'Love's Lab. Lost, v. 2. 915. When shepherds pipe on oaten straws; when turtles tread.
