Chapter TICCA to TIFFIN of T by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

TICCA to TIFFIN

TICCA, and vulg.

TICKER, adj. This is applied to any person or thing engaged by the job, or on contract. Thus a ticca garry is a hired carriage, a ticca doctor is a surgeon not in the regular service but temporarily engaged by Government. From Hind. thika, thikah, ‘hire, fare, fixed price.’

[1813.—“Teecka, hire, fare, contract, job.”—Gloss. to Fifth Report, s.v.]

1827.—“A Rule, Ordinance and Regulation for the good Order and Civil Government of the Settlement of Fort William in Bengal, and for regulating the number and fare of Teeka Palankeens, and Teeka Bearers in the Town of Calcutta…registered in the Supreme Court of Judicature, on the 27th June, 1827.”—Bengal Regulations of 1827.

1878.—“Leaving our servants to jabber over our heavier baggage, we got into a ‘ticca gharry,’ ‘hired trap,’ a bit of civilization I had hardly expected to find so far in the Mofussil.”—Life in the Mofussil, ii. 94.

[TICKA, s. Hind. tika, Skt. tilaka, a mark on the forehead made with coloured earth or unguents, as an ornament, to mark sectarial distinction, accession to the throne, at betrothal, &c; also a sort of spangle worn on the forehead by women. The word has now been given the additional meaning of the mark made in vaccination, and the tikawala Sahib is the vaccination officer.

[c. 1796.—“…another was sent to Kutch to bring thence the tika.…”—Mir Hussein Ali, Life of Tipu, 251

[1832.—“In the centre of their foreheads is a teeka (or spot) of lamp-black.”—Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, 2nd ed. 139.

[c. 1878.—“When a sudden stampede of the children, accompanied by violent yells and sudden falls, has taken place as I entered a village, I have been informed, by way of apology, that it was not I whom the children feared, but that they supposed that I was the Tikawala Sahib.”—Panjab Gazetteer, Rohtak, p. 9.]

TICKY-TOCK. This is an unmeaning refrain used in some French songs, and by foreign singing masters in their scales. It would appear from the following quotations to be of Indian origin.

c. 1755.—“These gentry (the band with nautch-girls) are called Tickytaw boys, from the two words Ticky and Taw, which they continually repeat, and which they chaunt with great vehemence.”—Ives, 75.

[c. 1883.—“Each pair of boys then, having privately arranged to represent two separate articles…comes up to the captains, and one of the pair says dik dik, daun daun, which apparently has about as much meaning as the analogous English nursery saying, ‘Dickory, dickory dock.’”—Panjab Gazetteer, Hoshiarpur, p. 35.]

[TIER-CUTTY, s. This is Malayal. tiyar-katti, the knife used by a Tiyan or toddy-drawer for scarifying the palm-trees. The Tiyan caste take their title from Malayal. tíyyan, which again comes from Malayal. tívu, Skt. dvipa, ‘an island,’ and derive their name from their supposed origin in Ceylon.

[1792.—“12 Tier Cutties.”—Account, in Logan, Malabar, iii. 169.

[1799.—“The negadee (naqdi, ‘cash- payment’) on houses, banksauls (see BANK-SHALL), Tiers’ knives.”—Ibid. iii. 324.]

TIFFIN, s. Luncheon, Anglo-Indian and Hindustani, at least in English households. Also to Tiff, v. to take luncheon. Some have derived this word from Ar. tafannun, ‘diversion, amusement,’ but without history, or evidence of such an application of the Arabic word. Others have derived it from Chinese ch’ih- fan, ‘eat-rice,’ which is only an additional example that anything whatever may be plausibly resolved into Chinese monosyllables. We believe the word to be a local survival of an English colloquial or slang term. Thus we find in the Lexicon Balatronicum, compiled originally by Capt. Grose (1785): “Tiffing, eating or drinking out of meal-times,” besides other meanings. Wright (Dict. of Obsolete and Provincial English) has: “Tiff, s. (1) a draught of liquor, (2) small beer;” and Mr. Davies (Supplemental English Glossary) gives some good quotations both of this substantive and of a verb “to tiff,” in the sense of ‘take off a draught.’ We should conjecture that Grose’s sense was a modification of this one, that his “tiffing” was a participial noun from the verb to tiff, and that the Indian tiffin is identical with the participial noun. This has perhaps some corroboration both from the form “tiffing” used in some earlier Indian examples, and from the Indian use of the verb “to Tiff.” [This view is accepted by Prof. Skeat, who derives tiff from