Part 80 (1/2)

TILT. To tilt; to fight with a sword. To run full tilt against one; allusion to the ancient tilling with the lance.

TILTER. A sword.

TIM WHISKY. A light one--horse chaise without a head.

TIMBER TOE. A man with a wooden leg.

TINY. Little.

TO TIP. To give or lend. Tip me your daddle; give me your hand. Tip me a hog; give me a s.h.i.+lling. To tip the lion; to flatten a man's nose with the thumb, and, at the same time to extend his mouth, with the fingers, thereby giving him a sort of lion-like countenauce. To tip the velvet; tonguing woman. To tip all nine; to knock down all the nine pins at once, at the game of bows or skittles: tipping, at these gaines, is slightly touching the tops of the pins with the bowl. Tip; a draught; don't spoil his tip.

TIP-TOP. The best: perhaps from fruit, that growing at the top of the tree being generally the best, as partaking most of the sun. A tip-top workman; the best, or most excellent Workman.

TIPPERARY FORTUNE. Two town lands, stream's town, and ballinocack; said of Irish women without fortune.

TIPPLE. Liquor.

TIPPLERS. Sots who are continually sipping.

TIPSEY. Almost drunk.

TIRING. Dressing: perhaps abbreviation of ATTIRING. Tiring women, or tire women: women that used to cut ladies hair, and dress them.

t.i.t. A horse; a pretty little t.i.t; a smart little girl.

a *** or tid bit; a delicate morsel. Tommy t.i.t; a smart lively little fellow.

t.i.t FOR TAT. An equivalent.

TO t.i.tTER. To suppress a laugh.

t.i.tTER TATTER. One reeling, and ready to fall at the least touch; also the childish amus.e.m.e.nt of riding upon the two ends of a plank, poised upon the prop underneath its centre, called also see-saw. Perhaps tatter is a rustic p.r.o.nunciation of totter.

t.i.tTLE-TATTLE. Idle discourse, scandal, women's talk, or small talk.

t.i.tTUP. A gentle hand gallop, or canter.

TIZZY. Sixpence.

TOAD EATER. A poor female relation, and humble companion, or reduced gentlewoman, in a great family, the standing b.u.t.t, on whom all kinds of practical jokes are played off, and all ill humours vented. This appellation is derived from a mountebank's servant, on whom all experiments used to be made in public by the doctor, his master; among which was the eating of toads, formerly supposed poisonous.

Swallowing toads is here figuratively meant for swallowing or putting up with insults, as disagreeable to a person of feeling as toads to the stomach.

TOAD. Toad in a hole; meat baked or boiled in pye-crust.

He or she sits like a toad on a chopping-block; a saying of any who sits ill on horseback. As much need of it as a toad of a side-pocket; said of a person who desires any thing for which he has no real occasion. As full of money as a toad is of feathers.

TOAST. A health; also a beautiful woman whose health is often drank by men. The origin of this term (as it is said) was this: a beautiful lady bathing in a cold bath, one of her admirers out of gallantry drank some of the water: whereupon another of her lovers observed, he never drank in the morning, but he would kiss the toast, and immediately saluted the lady.

TOASTING IRON, or CHEESE TOASTER. A sword.

TOBY LAY. The highway. High toby man; a highway-man.