trinket (trenket), a shoemaker’s knife; ‘Trenket, an instrument for a cordwayner, batton a torner (soulies)’, Palsgrave [also spelt trynket]. ME. trenket (Voc. 562. 3); trenkett, ‘ansorium’ (Cath. Angl.); trenkette (Prompt. 490, see note, no. 2395). Cp. F. tranchet: ‘A shoomakers round cutting knife: tranchet de cordouanier’ (Sherwood).
triplicity, a combination of three zodiacal signs in the form of an equilateral triangle; ‘And how the signs in their triplicities, By sympathizing in their trine consents’, &c., Drayton, Man in the Moon, 458. See [trigon].
trist, trest, the station where a hunter was placed to watch the game. At the trest, Morte Arthur, leaf 382, back, 14; bk. xviii, c. 21; at the tryst, Master of Game, ch. 16 (end). ME. triste, an appointed station in hunting (Chaucer, Tr. and Cr. ii. 1534), tryster (Gawain), tristre (Anc. R.). OF. triste, tristre (Godefroy). See Dict. (s.v. Tryst).
trisulke, three-forked, triple. Heywood, Golden Age, A. iii (Saturn); vol. iii, p. 43; Brazen Age (Hercules), p. 250; a trident, three-forked spear, Heywood, Dialogue 4 (Timon); vol. vi, p. 160. L. trisulcus, three-forked (Virgil).
troad, trode, track of footsteps, beaten path. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 10. 5; Shep. Kal., July, 14; Gascoigne, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 325. ‘Trod’, meaning a beaten track, a foot-path, is a north-country word down to Lincoln (EDD.).
troll, troul, trowl, to roll; ‘To troll the tongue’, Milton, P. L. xi. 620; to circulate or pass round, as a vessel of liquor at a carouse, ‘Troul the bowl’, Beaumont and Fl., Knight of the B. Pestle, ii. 5 (Merrythought); Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, v. 4 (Song); to sing a tune in succession, ‘Troll the catch’, Tempest, iii. 2. 126; Beaumont and Fl., Philaster, v. 3 (Dion). In prov. use in various parts of England in the sense of to roll, to circulate, see EDD. (s.v. Troll, vb.1). ME. trollyn, ‘volvo’ (Prompt.).
troll-my-dames, the name of a game; ‘A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with troll-my-dames’, Wint. Tale, iv. 3. 92 (Autolycus). Also called pigeon-holes; also nine-holes (described by Strutt). The game was played with a board, at one end of which were a number of arches, like pigeon-holes, into which small balls were to be bowled; see Nares. The word troll-my-dames is a corruption of the French name for the game Trou-Madame; see Cotgrave.
tromp, to deceive. B. Jonson, New Inn, i. 1 (Host). F. tromper. Cp. EDD. (s.v. Trump, vb.3).
trossers, tight drawers. Beaumont and Fl., Coxcomb, ii. 3 (Maria); Hen. V, iii. 7. 57 (so most modern edds.). See [strossers].
trot, an old woman. Tam. Shrew, i. 2. 80; used of a man, Meas. for M. iii. 2. 54; Gammer Gurton, ii. 8; Warner, Albion, ii. p. 47 (Nares). In prov. use (EDD.). Anglo-F. trote: ‘la viele trote’ (Gower, Mirour, 17900).