Chapter TOBRA to TOMAUN of T by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

home full of Toddy, said, If I meet the Cat, I will tear him in pieces.”—Ceylon Proverb, in Ind. Antiq. i. 59.

Of the Scotch application of the word we can find but one example in Burns, and, strange to say, no mention in Jameson’s Dictionary:

1785.—

“The lads an’ lasses, blythely bent
To mind baith saul an’ body,
Sit round the table, weel content
An’ steer about the toddy. … ”

Burns, The Holy Fair.

1798.—“Action of the case, for giving her a dose in some toddy, to intoxicate and inflame her passions.”—Roots’s Reports, i. 80.

1804.—

“ … I’ve nae fear for’t;
For siller, faith, ye ne’er did care for’t,
Unless to help a needful body,
An' get an antrin glass o' toddy.”

Tannahill, Epistle to James Barr.

TODDY-BIRD, s. We do not know for certain what bird is meant by this name in the quotation. The nest would seem to point to the Baya, or Weaver-bird (Ploceus Baya, Blyth): but the size alleged is absurd; it is probably a blunder. [Another bird, the Artamus fuscus, is, according to Balfour (Cycl. s.v.) called the toddy shrike.]

[1673.—“For here is a Bird (having its name from the Tree it chuses for its Sanctuary, the toddy-tree). … ”—Fryer, 76.]

c. 1750–60.—“It is in this tree (see PALMYRA, BRAB) that the toddy-birds, so called from their attachment to that tree, make their exquisitely curious nests, wrought out of the thinnest reeds and filaments of branches, with an inimitable mechanism, and are about the bigness of a partridge (?) The birds themselves are of no value. … ”—Grose, i. 48.

TODDY-CAT, s. This name is in S. India applied to the Paradoxurus Musanga, Jerdon: [the P. niger, the Indian Palm-Civet of Blanford (Mammalia, 106).] It infests houses, especially where there is a ceiling of cloth (see CHUTT). Its name is given for its fondness, real or supposed, for palm-juice.

[TOKO, s. Slang for ‘a thrashing.’ The word is imper. of Hind. tokna, ‘to censure, blame,’ and has been converted into a noun on the analogy of bunnow and other words of the same kind.

[1823.—“Toco for yam—Yams are food for negroes in the W. Indies … and if, instead of receiving his proper ration of these, blackee gets a whip (toco) about his back, why ‘he has caught toco’ instead of yam.”—John Bee, Slang Dict.

[1867.—“Toko for Yam. An expression peculiar to negroes for crying out before being hurt.”—Smyth, Sailor’s Word-Book, s.v.]

TOLA, s. An Indian weight (chiefly of gold or silver), not of extreme antiquity. Hind. tola, Skt. tula, ‘a balance,’ tul, ‘to lift up, to weigh.’ The Hindu scale is 8 rattis (see RUTTEE)=1 masha, 12 mashas=1 tola. Thus the tola was equal to 96 rattis. The proper weight of the ratti, which was the old Indian unit of weight, has been determined by Mr. E. Thomas as 1.75 grains, and the medieval tanga which was the prototype of the rupee was of 100 rattis weight. “But … the factitious ratti of the Muslims was merely an aliquot part—-1\96 of the comparatively recent tola, and 1/92 of the newly devised rupee.” By the Regulation VII. of 1833, putting the British India coinage on its present footing (see under SEER) the tola weighing 180 grs., which is also the weight of the rupee, is established by the same Regulation, as the unit of the system of weights, 80 tolas=1 ser, 40 sers=1 Maund.

1563.—“I knew a secretary of Nizamoxa (see NIZAMALUCO), a native of Coraçon, who ate every day three tollas (of opium), which is the weight of ten cruzados and a half; but this Coraçoni