Chapter TO TIFF to TIGER of T by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

TO TIFF to TIGER

TO TIFF, in the Indian sense.

1803.—“He hesitated, and we were interrupted by a summons to tiff at Floyer’s. After tiffin Close said he should be glad to go.”—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 116.

1814.—“We found a pool of excellent water, which is scarce on the hills, and laid down to tiff on a full soft bed, made by the grass of last year and this. After tiffing, I was cold and unwell.”—Ibid. p. 283. Tiffing here is a participle, but its use shows how the noun tiffin would be originally formed.

1816.—

“The huntsman now informed them all
They were to tiff at Bobb’ry Hall.
Mounted again, the party starts,
Upsets the hackeries and carts,
Hammals (see HUMMAUL) and palanquins and doolies,
Dobies (see DHOBY) and burrawas (?) and coolies.”

The Grand Master, or Adventures of Qui Hi, by Quiz (Canto viii.).

[Burrawa is probably H. bharua, ‘a pander.’]

1829.—“I was tiffing with him one day, when the subject turned on the sagacity of elephants.…”—John Shipp, ii. 267.

1859.—“Go home, Jack. I will tiff with you to-day at half-past two.”—J. Lang, Wanderings in India, p. 16.

The following, which has just met our eye, is bad grammar, according to Anglo-Indian use:

1885.—“‘Look here, RANDOLPH, don’t you know,’ said Sir PEEL,…‘Here you’ve been gallivanting through India, riding on elephants, and tiffining with Rajahs.…’”—Punch, Essence of Parliament, April 25, p. 204.

TIGER, s. The royal tiger was apparently first known to the Greeks by the expedition of Alexander, and a little later by a live one which Seleucus sent to Athens. The animal became, under the Emperors, well known to the Romans, but fell out of the knowledge of Europe in later days, till it again became familiar in India. The Greek and Latin [Greek Text] tigriV, tigris, is said to be from the old Persian word for an arrow, tigra, which gives the modern Pers. (and Hind.) tir.¹ Pliny says of the River Tigris: “a celeritate Tigris incipit vocari. Ita appellant Medi sagittam” (vi. 27). In speaking of the animal and its “velocitatis tremendae,” Pliny evidently glances at this etymology, real or imaginary. So does Pausanias probably, in his remarks on its colour. [This view of the origin of the name is accepted by Schrader (Prehist. Ant. of the Aryan Peoples, E.T. 250), who writes: “Nothing like so far back in the history of the Indo- Europeans does the lion’s dreadful rival for supremacy over the beasts, the tiger, go. In India the songs of the Rigveda have nothing to say about him; his name (vyághrá) first occurs in the Atharvaveda, i.e. at a time when the Indian immigration must have extended much farther towards the Ganges; for it is in the reeds and grasses of Bengal that we have to look for the tiger’s proper home. Nor is he mentioned among the beasts of prey in the Avesta. The district of Hyrcania, whose numerous tigers the later writers of antiquity speak of with especial frequency, was then called Vchrkana, ‘wolf-land.’ It is, therefore, not improbable…that the tiger has spread in relatively late times from India over portions of W. and N. Asia.”] c. B.C. 325.—“The Indians think the Tiger ( [Greek Text] ton tigrin) a great deal stronger than the elephant. Nearchus says he saw the skin of a tiger, but did not see the beast itself, and that the Indians assert the tiger to be as big as the biggest horse; whilst in swiftness and strength there is no creature to be compared to him. And when he engages the elephant he springs on its head, and easily throttles it. Moreover, the creatures which we have seen and call tigers are only jackals which are dappled, and of a kind bigger than ordinary jackals.”—Arrian, Indica, xv. We apprehend that this big dappled jackal ( [Greek Text] qwV) is meant for a hyaena.

c. B.C. 322.—“In the island of Tylos…there is also another wonderful thing they say…for there is a certain tree, from which they cut sticks, and these are very handsome articles, having a certain variegated colour, like the skin of a tiger. The wood is very heavy; but if it is struck against any solid substance it shivers like a piece of pottery.”—Theophrastus, H. of Plants, Bk. v. c. 4.

c. B.C. 321.—“And Ulpianus…said: ‘Do we anywhere find the word used a masculine, [Greek Text] ton tigrin for I know that Philemon says thus in his Neaera:

‘A. We’ve seen the tigress ( [Greek Text] thn tigrin) that Seleucus sent us;
Are we not bound to send Seleucus back Some beast in fair exchange?’”
Some beast in fair exchange?