Toss, a measure of sprats.—Billingsgate.
Tot, a small glass; a “TOT o’ whisky” is the smallest quantity sold.
Tot-up, to add together,—as columns of figures, £ s. d. From TOTAL-UP, through the vulgarism TOTTLE.
Totting, bone-picking, either peripatetically or at the dust-heaps. “Tot” is a bone, but chiffoniers and cinder-hunters generally are called TOT-PICKERS nowadays. Totting also has its votaries on the banks of the Thames, where all kinds of flotsam and jetsam, from coals to carrion, are known as TOTS.
Touch, a slang expression in common use in phrases which express the extent to which a person is interested or affected, “as a fourpenny TOUCH,” i.e., a thing costing fourpence. See an example in Mr., afterwards Sir Erasmus, Philipps’s Diary, at Oxford, in 1720. “Sept. 22.—At night went to the ball at the Angel, a guinea TOUCH.” It is also used at Eton in the sense of a “tip,” or present of money; and is sometimes said of a woman to imply her worthlessness, as, “Only a half-crown TOUCH.”
Touch-and-go, an expression often applied to men with whom business arrangements should be of the lightest possible character. Thus, “He’s a TOUCH-AND-GO sort of fellow. Be careful of him.”
Toucher, “as near as a TOUCHER,” as near as possible without actually touching.—Coaching term. The old Jarveys, to show their skill, used to drive against things so closely as absolutely to touch, yet without injury. This they called a TOUCHER, or TOUCH-AND-GO, which was hence applied to anything which was within an ace of ruin.
Touchy, peevish, irritable. Johnson terms it a low word.
Tout. In sporting phraseology a TOUT signifies an agent in the training districts, on the look-out for information as to the condition and capabilities of those horses entering for a coming race. Touts often get into trouble through entering private training-grounds. They, however, are very highly paid, some making 40l. or 50l. a week during the season. Now frequently called horse-watchers.
Tout, to look out, or watch.