toe-ragn.

1864 J. F. Mortlock Experiences of Convict ii. ix. 80 Stockings being unknown, some luxurious men wrapped round their feet a piece of old shirting, called, in language more expressive than elegant, a ‘toe-rag’.

1932 F. Jennings Tramping with Tramps vi. 98 Socks are very seldom worn. Instead you get a winding of cotton rag round the ball and toes of the foot as a safeguard against blisters. Toe-rags, the tramp calls them.

1933 ‘G. Orwell’ Down & Out xxvii. 197 Less than half the tramps actually bathed.., but they all washed their faces and feet, and the horrid greasy little clouts known as toe-rags which they bind round their toes.

1875 T. Frost Circus Life xvi. 278 Toe rags is another expression of contempt..used..chiefly by the lower grades of circus men, and the acrobats who stroll about the country, performing at fairs.

1903 ‘T. Collins’ Such is Life v. 182 ‘Come over to the wagon, and have a drink of tea,’ says I. ‘No, no,’ says he; ‘none of your toe-rag business.’

1912 D. H. Lawrence Let. (1962) I. 154 Remember, whatever toe-rag I may be personally, I am the person she livanted with. So you be careful.

1960 H. Pinter Caretaker i. 9 All them toe-rags, mate, got the manners of pigs.

1971 ‘H. Calvin’ Poison Chasers xii. 168 Move, ya useless big toerag!

1978 M. Kenyon Deep Pocket xiii. 165 Could she have loved this toe-rag sheikh out of the desert?

1980 J. Wainwright Tainted Man 171 The Law doesn't differentiate between you and the most miserable towrag [sic] on the face of the earth.

1896 Truth (Sydney) 12 Jan. The bushie's favourite term of opprobrium ‘a toe-ragger’ is also probably from the Maori. Amongst whom the nastiest term of contempt was that of tau rika rika, or slave.

1919 V. Marshall World of Living Dead (1969) 82 Over the way a ‘trial’ man had tossed a ‘chew’ to a ‘toeragger’.

1953 E. Partridge in I. Bevan Sunburnt Country 217 Some of the gold-diggers were tramps,..and several terms connected with them are worth recording—..toe-ragger, a dead~beat wanderer.

1966 G. W. Turner Eng. Lang. in Austral. & N.Z. vii. 144 The battler seems to have been the poorest itinerant. The toeragger was not much wealthier than the battler.