Tavern. From the Latin taberna, a hut of boards.
Tavistock. The stockaded place on the Tavy.
Tavistock Street. After the ancestor of the present great ground landlord, Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, Marquis of Tavistock, and Duke of Bedford, the father of the celebrated Rachel who became the wife of Lord William Russell, beheaded in 1683. The square and place similarly designated are included in the ducal estate.
Tawdry. A word derived from the cheap, showy lace anciently sold at the annual fair of St Audrey in the Isle of Ely. This was called St Audrey’s lace, afterwards corrupted into Tawdrey. The name of St Audrey itself was a corruption of St Ethelreda.
Tay. From the Celtic tain, river.
Tearless Victory. Plutarch in his “Lives” gave this name to the great victory won by Archimandus, King of Sparta, over the Arcadians and Argives, B.C. 367, without the loss of a single Spartan soldier.
Teetotaler. This designation of a total abstainer arose out of the stammering address at Preston in September 1833 of one Richard Turner, who concluded by saying: “Nothing but t-t-t-t-total abstinence will do--that or nowt!”
Teetotum. A coined term for a Working Man’s Total Abstinence Club, suggested by the word “Teetotaler.”
Teignmouth. Situated at the mouth, or in the estuary of, the Teign, which name is a variant of the Celtic tain, river.
Tell that to the Marines. In the old days, before the bluejackets proved themselves as good fighting men on land as at sea, the Marines were an indispensable adjunct to the Navy, but as time hung heavily upon their hands they were always ready to listen to a story. Finding that they were easily gullible, the sailors loved to entertain them with the most extraordinary yarns, and, while on shore, if they heard a wonderful story themselves they made up their minds to “tell that to the Marines.”