For more fineness, with a tawdry-lace."
Shep. Cal. iv. 135.
Tawny. This is simply tanned, i.e. of a brown colour like that of tanned leather. Hence in 1 H. VI., the Bishop's men are in "tawny coats," i.e. coats of some variety of brown colour.
Tear a cat (M. N. D. i. 2), an expression of ranting violence of which the origin is merely conjectural.
Tennis. The figurative expressions in these plays derived from this game are:—Bandy (R. and J. ii. 5, Lear, i. 4 et alibi), to strike and drive the ball with the racket. Hazard (H. V. i. 2) is, says Steevens, "a place in the tennis-court into which the ball was sometimes struck." Chace (ib.) is, says Douce, "that spot where a ball falls, beyond which the adversary must strike the ball to gain a point or chace. At long tennis it is the spot where the ball leaves off rolling." Steevens quotes from Sidney's Arcadia, book iii. "Then Fortune—as if she had made chaces enow on the one side of that bloody tennis-court—went on to the other side of the line." Surely, according to this, with which Shakespeare agrees, a chace was not a spot. The line, it may be observed, ran along the court at right angles to the wall against which they played.
Tercel (Tr. and Cr. iii. 2), and tassel-gentle (R. and J. ii. 2), the male of the goss-hawk, tiercelet, Fr., so called, it is said, from being a third less than the female, or, some say, as being one of three in a falcon's nest, the other two being always females. The epithet gentle denoted its docility.
Termagant (Ham. iii. 2), an imaginary being, in the old mysteries and moralities, usually associated with Mahound, i.e. Mahomet, and of a furious violent character. The word still remains, but in a somewhat different sense. It comes, it is said, from Trivagante, It., used in the same manner. May not the remote origin be Ter-(i.e. Tris-) megistos?
Thewes (2 H. IV. iii. 4, Ham. i. 3, J. C. i. 3). In these places Shakespeare uses this term in a corporeal sense of the sinews and muscles, and he may have been the first who did so. It properly denotes the qualities of the mind, from theaw, A.S., and is akin to Tugend Germ.
Thread and thrum (M. N. D. v. i). The thread is the warp in a web; the thrum, the tufts formed by the ends of the thread beyond the web. The two taken together therefore form the whole.
Three-farthings (K. John, i. 1), pieces of silver coin of that value; of course extremely thin and liable to crack.