1852. Bristed, Eng. Univ., 176. The gold-TUFTED Cap, which at Cambridge only designates a Johnian or Small-College Fellow-Commoner is here [Oxford] the mark of nobility.
1853. Bradley, Verdant Green, 1. vii., note. As tuft and tuft-hunters have become household words, it is perhaps needless to tell anyone that the gold tassel is the distinguishing mark of a nobleman.
1902. Free Lance, 22 Nov., 169. 1. A writer in the Sovereign, adopting the happy pseudonym of 'Thomas Tuft-Hunt,' has commenced a series entitled 'Sovereigns I have Seen.'
2. (old colloquial).—An imperial, a goat's beard.
1842-3. Thackeray, Fitz-Boodle's Confessions. Do you like those tufts that gentlemen sometimes wear upon their chins?
3. (venery).—The pubic hair : male or female: also (of women) TUFTED HONOURS and CLOVEN TUFT (TUFTED HONOURS also = the female pudendum).
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, xv., note. Why Callibistri should signify a woman's tufted honours I know not.
d. 1704. Brown, Works, ii. 186. Get a good warm Girdle and tie round you. . . . Pox on you, how can a single girdle do me good when a Brace was my destruction? . . . a sacrifice to a cloven tuft.
Tug, subs. (Eton).—A Colleger; a scholar on the foundation. Hence tuggery = College. [Gt. Public Schools: from the toga worn by Collegers to distinguish them from the rest of the school.]
1881. Pascoe, Everyday Life in our Public Schools. The long-looked-for St. Andrew's Day arrives, when the great match of collegers, or, as the small oppidan would term it, tugs, and oppidans is to be played.
1883. Brinsley Richards, Seven Years at Eton. My interlocutor was a red-headed, freckled little boy of eleven, who had come from Aberdeen, 'to try for tuggery,' that is, to try and pass on to the foundation as a King's scholar.
1890. Great Public Schools, 52. The disrespect, almost bordering on contempt, with which the Oppidans used for many years to regard the Togati, or gown-wearing boys.
Adj. (Winchester).—Stale, ordinary, vapid, common. Whence tugs=stale news; tug-clothes = everyday clothes; TUG-JAW = wearisome talk.
Phrases.—To hold one tug = to keep busy; to task-drive; to hold tug = to stand hard work, or severe strain; tug of war (see War).
1667. Wood, Life, 18 July, 206. There was work enough for a curious and critical Antiquary, that would hold him tugg for a whole yeare.
Tug-mutton, subs. phr. (venery).—I. A whoremaster; MUTTON-MONGER (q.v.).
1630. Taylor, Works [Nares]. For though he be chaste of his body, yet his minde is onely upon flesh, he is the onely tugmutton, or mutton-monger, betwixt Dover and Dunbarr.
2. (Halliwell).—A glutton. Tui, subs. (Winchester).—Tuition.
Tulip. Go it, my tulip, phr. (obsolete).—A characteristic street phrase: an echo of the tulipo-mania of 1842, itself a recrudescence of the great craze of 1634.
Tulip-sauce, subs.phr. (common). —A kiss; kissing.
Tum, adj. (American).—Stylish, proper, spiff, A1.
c. 1889. Chicago Times [S.J. and C.]. By the way, gold spoons and forks for dessert have come in again, and you get them everywhere. Indeed, no table seems to look quite tum for a big occasion without them.
