1681 Heraclitus Ridens 27 Sept. 1/2 Our gracious Queen Elizabeth tickled their Tobies for them, for their Reformation.

1842 R. H. Barham Sir Rupert in Ingoldsby Legends 2nd Ser. 39 Throw us out John Doe, and Richard Roe, And sweetly we'll tickle their tobies.

1841 C. Dickens Barnaby Rudge iv. 258 ‘Put Toby this way, my dear.’ This Toby was the brown jug of which previous mention has been made.

1841 C. Dickens Barnaby Rudge lxxx. 403 When he had dined, comforted himself with a pipe, an extra Toby, a nap.

1852 E. M. Sewell Exper. of Life (1858) xix. 131 The great earthenware cup, the figure of a stout little man, which usually went by the name of Toby.

1857 T. Hughes Tom Brown's School Days i. i. 15 Pouring out his old ale from a Toby Philpot jug.

1901 Pall Mall Gaz. 31 Aug. 3 (Cass. Supp.) The brown Toby jug was filled for him.

1908 Daily Chron. 3 Nov. 5/6 The Tobies are relics of the old coaching days.

1841 C. Dickens Old Curiosity Shop i. xviii. 191 Producing a little terrier..‘He was once a Toby of yours warn't he?’

1882 M. E. Braddon Mt. Royal II. x. 210 Mopsy and Dopsy, their long limbs sheathed in sea-green velveteen, Toby-frills round their necks.

1885 Pall Mall Gaz. 30 Apr. 6/1 A trailing dress with the Toby frill so favoured by these..reformers.

1909 19th Century Mar. 446 A young gentleman in so-called skeleton trousers and a Toby frill.

1909 Daily Chron. 30 Aug. 7/5 A turn-down Toby collar of frilled lawn.

1842 London Jrnl. Arts & Sci. 19 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’.

1876 Encycl. 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.].

?1881 Census Eng. & Wales: Instr. Clerks classifying Occupations & Ages (?1885) 43 Toby and Rainbow Tub Maker.

1894 T. 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’.

1896 Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch 18 July 15/3 A large supply of..tobies.

1903 Westm. Gaz. 23 May 10/1 The railway ticket office clerk twists and swigs at a ‘toby’ as he asks you ‘Where for, sir?’

1910 T. 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.

1912 in 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.

1964 H. P. Tritton Time means Tucker 41 Raddle was a stick of blue or yellow ochre, also called ‘Toby’.

1965 J. S. Gunn Terminol. Shearing Industry 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.

1946 Theatre 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.

1961 W. P. Bowman & R. H. Ball Theatre Lang. 393 Toby,..a comic character type, a boisterous, blundering yokel as the protagonist. Hence Toby play (or show), a repertory favorite.

1964 Tennessee Folklore Soc. Bull. June 49 Bisbee's Comedians..is one of the two surviving Toby Shows left in the entire country.

1967 Oxf. Compan. Theatre (ed. 3) 949/1 Most travelling dramatic tent-shows, playing one-week stands in rural communities, feature a Toby-comedian.

1967 Oxf. Compan. Theatre (ed. 3) 949/1 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.

1967 Oxf. Compan. Theatre (ed. 3) 949/1 Toby-comedy includes generous use of the topical ‘ad-lib’.

1978 Chicago June 56/2 We thought this [sc. donkey baseball] had gone the way of the Toby shows.

1969 V. Canning Queen's Pawn i. 2 The river would be high... No use for a fly. He wanted..a few small Tobies for spinning.

1969 V. Canning Queen's Pawn i. 3 He bought some..four-gram golden Tobies, and the rod.

1973 A. Ross Dunfermline Affair 139 Bayne's biggest lure—a six-inch metal Toby with a big triple hook.

1807 Sessions' 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.

1811 Lexicon Balatronicum Toby Lay, the highway.

1819 J. H. Vaux New Vocab. Flash Lang. in Memoirs II. (at cited word) 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.

1823 W. Scott St. Ronan's Well III. v. 106 Armed, as if he meant to bing folks on the low toby.

1830 E. Bulwer-Lytton Paul Clifford I. iv. 76 I heered as ow Long Ned started for Hampshire this werry morning on a toby consarn!

1890 J. 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’.]

1904 Athenæum 4 May 648/1 Travellers..looked askance at its long, empty reaches, haunted maybe by gentlemen of the high toby.

1811 Lexicon Balatronicum (at cited word) Toby, High toby man, a highway~man. Low toby man, a footpad.

1819 J. H. Vaux New Vocab. Flash Lang. in Memoirs II. s.v. 219 Toby-gill or Toby-man, properly signifies a highwayman.

1834 W. H. Ainsworth Rookwood II. iii. v. 309 Jack Hall, a celebrated tobyman.

1881 Daily 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.

1902 Illustr. London News 20 Dec. 951/3 I am a-looking anxiously for a tobyman that has wickedly robbed a lady.

1819 J. H. Vaux New Vocab. Flash Lang. in Memoirs II. (at cited word) 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.