[1875.—"One of the horsemen dropped his tobra or nose-bag."—Drew, Jummoo, 240.]
TODDY, s. A corruption of Hind. tāṛī, i.e. the fermented sap of the tāṛ or palmyra, Skt. tāla, and also of other palms, such as the date, the coco-palm, and the Caryota urens; palm-wine. Toddy is generally the substance used in India as yeast, to leaven bread. The word, as is well known, has received a new application in Scotland, the immediate history of which we have not traced. The tāla-tree seems to be indicated, though confusedly, in this passage of Megasthenes from Arrian:
c. B.C. 320.—"Megasthenes tells us ... the Indians were in old times nomadic ... were so barbarous that they wore the skins of such wild animals as they could kill, and subsisted (?) on the bark of trees; that these trees were called in the Indian speech tala, and that there grew on them as there grows at the tops of the (date) palm trees, a fruit resembling balls of wool."—Arrian, Indica, vii., tr. by McCrindle.
c. 1330.—"... There is another tree of a different species, which ... gives all the year round a white liquor, pleasant to drink, which tree is called tari."—Fr. Jordanus, 16.
[1554.—"There is in Gujaret a tree of the palm-tribe, called tari agadji (millet tree). From its branches cups are suspended, and when the cut end of a branch is placed into one of these vessels, a sweet liquid, something of the nature of [arrack], flows out in a continuous stream ... and presently changes into a most wonderful wine."—Travels of Sidi Ali Reïs, trans. A. Vambéry, p. 29.]
[1609-10.—"Tarree." See under [SURA].]
1611.—"Palmiti Wine, which they call Taddy."—N. Dounton, in Purchas, i. 298.
[1614.—"A sort of wine that distilleth out of the Palmetto trees, called Tadie."—Foster, Letters, iii. 4.]
1615.—
"... And then more to glad yee