As soon as the acorn was opened, they all saw a little dog laid in cotton, and so small it might jump through a finger-ring without touching it.... It was a mixture of several colors; its ears and long hair reached to the ground. The prince set it on the ground, and forthwith the tiny creature began to dance a saraband with castanets.--Comtesse D’Aunoy, Fairy Tales (“The[(“The] White Cat,” 1682)
Tony Lumpkin, a young booby, fond of practical jokes, and low company. He was the son of Mrs. Hardcastle by her first husband.--Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer (1773).
Tony Tyler, on the editorial staff of the Tecumseh Chronicle. “He knows about eighteen hundred times as much as Samboye (managing editor) does, only somehow, he hasn’t the faculty of putting it on paper. Too much whiskey!”--Harold Frederic, Seth’s Brother’s Wife (1886).
Toodle, engine-fireman, an honest fellow, very proud of his wife, Polly, and her family.
Polly Toodle, known by the name of Richards, wife of the stoker. Polly was an apple-faced woman, and was mother of a large, apple-faced family. This jolly, homely, kind-hearted matron was selected as the nurse of Paul Dombey, and soon became devotedly attached to Paul and his sister, Florence.
Robin Toodle, known as “The Biler,” or “Rob the Grinder,” eldest son of Mrs. Toodle, wet-nurse of Paul Dombey. Mr. Dombey gets Robin into an institution called “The Charitable Grinders,” where the worst part of the boy’s character is freely developed. Robin becomes a sneak, and enters the service of James Carker, manager of the firm of Dombey and Son. On the death of Carker, Robin enters the service of Miss Lucretia Tox.--C. Dickens, Dombey and Son (1846).
Toom Tabard (“empty jacket”), a nickname given to John Balliol, because his appointment to the sovereignty of Scotland was an empty name. He had the royal robe or jacket, but nothing else (1259, 1292-1314).
Tooth Worshipped (A). The people of Ceylon worship the tooth of an elephant; those of Malabar, the tooth of a monkey. The Siamese once offered a Portuguese 700,000 ducats for the redemption of a monkey’s tooth.
Tooth-picks. The Romans used tooth-picks made of mastic wood, in preference to quills; hence, Rabelais says that Prince Gargantua “picked his teeth with mastic tooth-pickers” (s’escuroit les dents avecques ung trou de lentisce), bk. i. 23.
Lentiscum melius; sed si tibi frondea cuspis