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. ṭoknā, '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. tolā, Skt. tulā, 'a balance,' tul, 'to lift up, to weigh.' The Hindu scale is 8 rattīs (see [RUTTEE]) = 1 māsha, 12 māshas = 1 tolā. Thus the tolā was equal to 96 rattīs. The proper weight of the rattī, 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 rattīs weight. "But ... the factitious rattī 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 tolā 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 (Khorasānī), though he was a man of letters and a great scribe and official, was always nodding or sleeping."—Garcia, f. 155b.
1610.—"A Tole is a rupee challany of silver, and ten of these Toles are the value of one of gold."—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 217.
1615-16.—"Two tole and a half being an ounce."—Sir T. Roe, in Purchas, i. 545; [Hak. Soc. i. 183].
1676.—"Over all the Empire of the Great Mogul, all the Gold and Silver is weigh'd with Weights, which they call Tolla, which amounts to 9 deniers and eight grains of our weight."—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 18; [ed. Ball, i. 14].