| 释义 |
▪ I. toby, n.1|ˈtəʊbɪ|
[The familiar form of the Christian name Tobias, employed in various unconnected senses. (But some of the senses here grouped may have a different origin.)]
1. The posteriors, the buttocks: esp. in phrase to tickle one's toby. slang.
1681[see tickle v. 6 b]. 1842Barham Ingol. Leg. Ser. ii. Sir Rupert, Lay Naiads, Throw us out John Doe and Richard Roe, And sweetly we'll tickle their tobies.
2. (With capital T.) A jug or mug (formerly common) in the form of a stout old man wearing a long and full-skirted coat and a three-cornered hat (18th c. costume). Also called Toby Fill-pot, Toby Toss-pot. Also attrib. as Toby (Fill-pot) jug.
1840Dickens Barn. Rudge iv, ‘Put Toby this way, my dear’. This Toby was the brown jug of which previous mention has been made. Ibid. lxxx, When he had dined, comforted himself with a pipe, an extra Toby, a nap. 1852Sewell Exper. Life xix. (1858) 131 The great earthenware cup, the figure of a stout little man, which usually went by the name of Toby. 1857Hughes Tom Brown i. i, Pouring out his old ale from a Toby Philpot jug. 1901Pall Mall G. 31 Aug. 3 (Cass. Supp.) The brown Toby jug was filled for him. 1908Daily Chron. 3 Nov. 5/6 The Tobies are relics of the old coaching days.
3. The name of the trained dog introduced (in the first half of the 19th c.) into the Punch and Judy show, which wears a frill round its neck: hence Toby collar, Toby frill, a turn-down pleated or goffered collar worn by women and children.
1840Dickens Old C. Shop xviii, Producing a little terrier..‘He was once a Toby of yours, wasn't he?’ 1882[see frill n.1 1]. 1885Pall Mall G. 30 Apr. 6/1 A trailing dress with the Toby frill so favoured by these..reformers. 190919th Century Mar. 446 A young gentleman in so-called skeleton trousers and a Toby frill. 1909Daily Chron. 30 Aug. 7/5 A turn-down Toby collar of frilled lawn.
4. In full toby tub. A colour-printing machine for textiles.
1842London Jrnl. Arts & Sci. XIX. 35 The printing [of the fabric] is to be done in an ordinary machine or press, the colours being furnished from what is called the ‘toby tub’. 1876Encycl. Brit. IV. 684/2 By means of a modern invention several colours may be applied at once on the cloth by means of one block. The machine used for this purpose, which is called a ‘toby’, consists of [etc.]. 1881Instructions to Census Clerks (1885) 43 Toby and Rainbow Tub Maker.
5. An inferior kind of cigar. U.S. slang.
1894T. B. Searight Old Pike 144 They [sc. cheap cigars] became very popular with the drivers, and were at first called Conestoga cigars; since, by usage, corrupted into ‘stogies’ and ‘tobies’. 1896Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch 18 July 15/3 A large supply of..tobies. 1903Westm. Gaz. 23 May 10/1 The railway ticket office clerk twists and swigs at a ‘toby’ as he asks you ‘Where for, sir?’
6. Toby-night = Tobias night.
1910T. M. Parrott Chapman's Plays & Poems I. 699 The custom..is the well-known ‘Toby-night’, or ‘nights’, ordained as a rule of the Church by the Council at Carthage, A.D. 398. The rule was authorized by the example of Tobith (Toby), who spent the first three nights of his marriage in prayer.
7. Austral. slang. A stick of ochre used for marking sheep which have not been shorn to the owner's satisfaction.
1912in Stewart & Keesing Old Bush Songs (1957) 273 I've been shearing on the Goulburn side and down at Douglas Park, Where every day 'twas ‘Wool away!’ and toby did his work. 1964H. P. Tritton Time means Tucker 41 Raddle was a stick of blue or yellow ochre, also called ‘Toby’. 1965J. S. Gunn Terminol. Shearing Indust. ii. 11 The raddle stick was also called ‘Toby’, and its improper use was one of the main reasons for the formation of the first Shearers' Union.
8. (With capital initial.) The name of a stock character of American comedy (see quot. 1961), used attrib., esp. in Toby show.
1946Theatre Arts Nov. 652/1 Young actors who have played juveniles or ingenues with a Toby show seldom succumb to first-night nerves in later years. 1961Bowman & Ball Theatre Language 393 Toby,..a comic character type, a boisterous, blundering yokel as the protagonist. Hence Toby play (or show), a repertory favorite. 1964Tennessee Folklore Soc. Bull. June 49 Bisbee's Comedians..is one of the two surviving Toby Shows left in the entire country. 1967Oxf. Compan. Theatre (ed. 3) 949/1 Most travelling dramatic tent-shows, playing one-week stands in rural communities, feature a Toby-comedian. Ibid., Frederick R. Wilson, member of a touring tent-show company known as Horace Murphy's Comedians, was the first of a long line of actors to specialize in Toby roles. Ibid., Toby-comedy includes generous use of the topical ‘ad-lib’. 1978Chicago June 56/2 We thought this [sc. donkey baseball] had gone the way of the Toby shows.
9. Angling. (With capital initial.) A type of lure used in spinning.
1969V. Canning Queen's Pawn i. 2 The river would be high... No use for a fly. He wanted..a few small Tobies for spinning. Ibid. 3 He bought some..four-gram golden Tobies, and the rod. 1973A. Ross Dunfermline Affair 139 Bayne's biggest lure—a six-inch metal Toby with a big triple hook.
▪ II. toby, n.2 Thieves' slang.|ˈtəʊbɪ|
[app. altered (? through toba', toba) from tobar, the word for ‘road’ in Shelta, the cant or secret language of the Irish tinkers: see Note below.]
the toby: the highway as the resort of robbers; ‘the road’; also transf. highway robbery (called also the toby concern, toby lay); hence to ply or ride the toby, to practise highway robbery; the high (or main) toby, highway robbery by a mounted thief; also, the highway itself; the low toby, robbery by footpads.
1807Sessions' Papers Feb. 133/1 He..asked me if I had any objection of being in a good thing... I asked him when and..he replied it was low toby, meaning a fotpad [sic] robbery. 1811Lex. Balatr., Toby Lay, the highway. 1812J. H. Vaux Flash Dict. 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. 1824Scott St. Ronan's xxxi, Armed, as if he meant to bing folks on the low toby. 1830Lytton Paul Clifford I. iv. 76, I heered as ow Long Ned started for Hampshire this werry morning on a toby consarn! 1904Athenæum 4 May 648/1 Travellers..looked askance at its long, empty reaches, haunted maybe by gentlemen of the high toby. [1890J. Sampson in Jrnl. Gypsy Lore Soc. II. 217 Tober or Toby. This old word has found acceptance in every branch of cant... Toba, ground, is given as strolling-players' cant in the ‘Sporting Chronicle’. Borrow in his ‘Lavo-Lil’ calls Tobbar ‘a Rapparee word’.]
Hence ˈtoby v., trans. to rob on the highway; ˈtobyman, a highwayman.
So toby-gill, high toby gloak, high toby spice (also high spice toby): see quots.
1811Lexicon Balatronicum s.v. galloper, The toby gill clapped his bleeders to his galloper. Ibid. s.v. Toby, High toby man, a highway⁓man. Low toby man, a footpad. c1812in Byron Juan xi. xix. note, On the high toby-spice flash the muzzle, In spite of each gallows old scout. 1812J. H. Vaux Flash Dict. s.v., To toby a man, is to rob him on the highway, a person convicted of this offence, is said to be done for a toby. Ibid., Toby-gill or Toby-man, properly signifies a highwayman. Ibid., High-toby-gloak, a highwayman. 1834H. Ainsworth Rookwood iii. v, Jack Hall, a celebrated toby⁓man. 1876Hindley Adv. Cheap Jack 4 Halting..during the heat on the ‘high spice toby’, as we used to call the main road. 1881Daily News 22 Dec. 1/3 When the footpad and ‘high-tobymen’ of ancient turnpike roads are replaced by male and female brigands armed with pistol and chloroform. 1902Illustr. Lond. News 20 Dec. 951/3, I am a-looking anxiously for a tobyman that has wickedly robbed a lady.
[Note. For Shelta see J. Sampson in Jrnl. Gypsy Lore Soc. 1890, II. 217, also Kuno Meyer, ibid. 257. The latter holds Shelta or ‘Sheldhru’ to be ‘a deliberate and systematic modification’ of Irish Gaelic, of considerable antiquity, the words being altered by reversal, metathesis, substitution and addition of letters or elements. Hence tobar has been viewed as formed by metathesis from Irish bothar ‘road’; though, if so, it must either have been formed from the written word, or be very ancient, since medial th has long been mute.] |