TOSTDAUN, s. Military Hind. tosdān for a cartouche-box. The word appears to be properly Pers. toshadān, 'provision-holder,' a wallet.
[1841.—"This last was, however, merely 'tos-dan kee awaz'—a cartouch-box report—as our sepoys oddly phrase a vague rumour."—Society in India, ii. 223.]
TOTY, s. Tam. toṭṭi, Canar. totīga, from Tam. tondu, 'to dig,' properly a low-caste labourer in S. India, and a low-caste man who in villages receives certain allowances for acting as messenger, &c., for the community, like the [gorayt] of N. India.
1730.—"Il y a dans chaque village un homme de service, appellé Totti, qui est chargé des impositions publiques."—Lettr. Edif. xiii. 371.
[1883.—"The name Toty being considered objectionable, the same officers in the new arrangements are called Talaiaris (see [TALIAR]) when assigned to Police, and Vettians when employed in Revenue duties."—Le Fanu, Man. of Salem, ii. 211.]
TOUCAN, s. This name is very generally misapplied by Europeans to the various species of Hornbill, formerly all styled Buceros, but now subdivided into various genera. Jerdon says: "They (the hornbills) are, indeed, popularly called Toucans throughout India; and this appears to be their name in some of the Malayan isles; the word signifying 'a worker,' from the noise they make." This would imply that the term did originally belong to a species of hornbill, and not to the S. American Rhamphastes or Zygodactyle. Tukang is really in Malay a 'craftsman or artificer'; but the dictionaries show no application to the bird. We have here, in fact, a remarkable instance of the coincidences which often justly perplex etymologists, or would perplex them if it were not so much their habit to seize on one solution and despise the others. Not only is tukang in Malay 'an artificer,' but, as Willoughby tells us, the Spaniards called the real S. American toucan 'carpintero' from the noise he makes. And yet there seems no doubt that Toucan is a Brazilian name for a Brazilian bird. See the quotations, and especially Thevet's, with its date.
The Toucan is described by Oviedo (c. 1535), but he mentions only the name by which "the Christians" called it,—in Ramusio's Italian Picuto (?Beccuto; Sommario, in Ramusio, iii. f. 60). [Prof. Skeat (Concise Dict. s.v.) gives only the Brazilian derivation. The question is still further discussed, without any very definite result, save that it is probably an imitation of the cry of the bird, in N. & Q. 9 ser. vii. 486; viii. 22, 67, 85, 171, 250.]
1556.—"Sur la coste de la marine, la plus frequẽte marchandise est le plumage d'vn oyseau, qu'ils appellent en leur langue Toucan, lequel descrivons sommairement puis qu'il vient à propos. Cest oyseau est de la grandeur d'vn pigeon.... Au reste cest oyseau est merveilleusement difforme et monstrueux, ayant le bec plus gros et plus long quasi que le reste du corps."—Les Singularitez de la France Antarticque, autrement nommée Amerique.... Par T. André Theuet, Natif d'Angoulesme, Paris, 1558, f. 91.
1648.—"Tucana sive Toucan Brasiliensibus: avis picae aut palumbi magnitudine.... Rostrum habet ingens et nonnumquam palmum longum, exterius flavam.... Mirum est autem videri possit quomodo tantilla avis tam grande rostrum ferat; sed levissimum est."—GeorgI MarcgravI de Liebstad, Hist. Rerum Natur. Brasiliae. Lib. V. cap. xv., in Hist. Natur. Brasil. Lugd. Bat. 1648, p. 217.
See also (1599) Aldrovandus, Ornitholog. lib. xii. cap. 19, where the word is given toucham.