toffee--prophetes.ai

toffee, n. and a.
  (ˈtɒfɪ)
  Also toffy.
  [Of uncertain origin: app. orig. dialectal, and sometimes spelt tuffy, toughy, as if named from its toughness; but the earlier form is the northern taffy, q.v.]
  A. n.
  1. a. A sweet-meat made from sugar or treacle, butter, and sometimes a little flour, boiled together; often mixed with bruised nuts, as almond toffee or walnut toffee.

a 1825 Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Toughy, a coarse sweetmeat, composed of brown sugar and treacle; named from its toughness, though perhaps it should be spelled tuffy, and considered as another form of taffy, described in Wilbraham's Cheshire Dialect [1817] as compounded of the same ingredients. 1825 Mrs. Cameron Seeds Greediness in Houlston Tracts I. No. 22. 2 Some shining sticky stuff, which in some countries children call tuffy. 1828 Craven Gloss. s.v., ‘To join for toffy’, to club for making toffy, a custom still very frequent amongst young persons. 1862 Dickens Lett. 28 Jan., I am going to bring the boys some toffee. 1877 Black Green Past. ii, Is it sixpence you want to buy toffy with?

b. attrib. and Comb.

1857 Hughes Tom Brown i. iii, It being only a step to the toffy shop. 1896 Westm. Gaz. 30 May 2/1 The effect..that a toffee drop has on a churchwarden when he finds it in the bag.

c. A small, shaped piece of toffee, usu. sold wrapped.

1938 G. Greene Brighton Rock i. iii. 52 ‘Have a toffee.’ ‘It's bad for the figure.’ 1984 W. Garner Rats' Alley x. 195 He..bought..a box of her favourite toffees from the shop next door.

2. Phr. not to be able (to do a thing) for toffee: to be incompetent at it. colloq.

1914 Illustr. London News 12 Sept. 380/1 Their opponents cannot ‘shoot for nuts’ (or ‘for toffee’, as one Tommy more expressly put it). 1932 D. L. Sayers Have his Carcase xii. 145 The Morgan wouldn't start, not for toffee. 1951 M. Kennedy Lucy Carmichael ii. 76 Those dreary girls you get in every Drama School who can't act for toffee. 1977 C. McCullough Thorn Birds xiii. 325 You can't kiss for toffee. You open your mouth too wide.

3. Nonsense, rubbish.

a 1930 D. H. Lawrence Phoenix (1936) 588 The eternal flame of the high ideal is all my-eye. It's all toffee, my dear sirs. 1957 P. Wildeblood Main Chance 220 Working-class to the backbone, just like us... And if he's been filling you up with a lot of toffee to the contrary, more fool you. 1970 M. Tripp Man without Friends vii. 77 ‘It was all a lot of toffee,’ I said, ‘as Hardacre very well knows.’

4. A medium shade of brown. Cf. sense B below.

1960 Woman's Own 19 Mar. 42/2 In stone, toffee, scarlet, green. 1976 Honolulu Star-Bull. 21 Dec. a–12 (Advt.), In toffee, green or blue... Jacket with stitched back-belt.

5. toffee-coloured, toffee-like adjs.; toffee apple, (a) an apple coated with toffee and mounted on a stick; (b) slang, a bomb of similar shape that is fired from a trench mortar; toffee-brown = sense 4 above; toffee hammer, a miniature hammer such as may be used to break pieces of toffee; toffee-nose slang, a snob or supercilious person; also attrib.; toffee-nosed a. slang, snobbish, supercilious; toffee paper, a small piece of paper in which a toffee is wrapped.

1917 B.E.F. Times 25 Dec. f. 3/2 The planting of Toffee-apples on the border of your neighbour's allotment will seriously interfere with the ripening of his gooseberries. 1930 Brophy & Partridge Songs & Slang 1914–18 171 Toffee Apples.—Trench mortar bombs, so called from the haft, like the skewer in a toffee-apple. 1937 ‘R. Crompton’ William—the Showman vi. 127 A little girl was leaning against the wall, eating a toffee-apple on a stick. 1957 Times 5 Sept. 11/4 We must kill the idea that Weymouth is just a candy-floss, toffee-apple resort. 1975 P. Fussell Gt. War & Mod. Memory (1977) ix. 313 Everything from shovels,..and rolls of barbed wire, to..the perverse toffee-apple. 1976 Milton Keynes Express 16 July 8/2 Toffee apples and ice-cream, sweets and raffles, pony rides and competitions—these were all part of the scene.

1961 M. Kelly Spoilt Kill i. 30 Creased forehead, receding toffee-brown hair. 1978 R. Rendell Sleeping Life xvi. 129 Malina..wore jeans, of toffee-brown silk.

1948 M. Allingham More Work for Undertaker xiii. 167 The clear toffee-coloured pavements. 1979 D. MacKenzie Raven settles Score 5 His long toffee-coloured hair.

1958 B. Behan Borstal Boy iii. 230, I sometimes saw a fellow wearing overalls and walking round..carrying brushes and paint and sometimes glazing tools; hacking knife, glazing knife, toffee hammer,..and rule. 1978 D. Bloodworth Crosstalk vii. 54 Toby jugs and toffee hammers.

1919 Toffee-like [see raft v.¹ 5]. 1944 K. Douglas Alamein to Zem Zem (1946) 78 A tin of treacle, which had been well heated, contained a delicious black toffee-like substance.

1943 Hunt & Pringle Service Slang 67 Toffee-nose, another of the expressions chiefly heard amongst the W.A.A.F. This refers to a snob or someone who considers herself ‘superior’. It is very apt since it implies that the nose is kept high to prevent it coming into contact with the mouth. 1958 Woman 12 Apr. 69/4 People thought I was a bit of a toffee-nose for the first few months because I didn't speak to them. 1962 John o' London's 29 Nov. 506/3 Christian was a gentleman, hence Mr. Brando's toffee-nose accent. 1974 Toffee-nose [see Jew boy s.v. Jew n. 3 a].

1925 Fraser & Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 287 Toffee-nosed, stuck up. 1928 T. E. Lawrence Let. 20 Jan. (1938) 568 A premature ‘life’ will do more to disgust the select and superior people (the R.A.F. call them the ‘toffee-nosed’) than anything. 1960 K. Amis Take a Girl like You iv. 60 She did not want any more chat, but could not think how to say so without running the risk of sounding both stagey and toffee-nosed. 1978 Radio Times 28 Jan.–3 Feb. 17/2 Let Elkan Allan and the rest of the toffee-nosed critics sneer; I shall be watching Big Jim McLain this Sunday and so, I am sure, will a lot of other people.

1958 G. Bellairs Corpse at Carnival i. 9 A little Manx cat..chasing a piece of toffee-paper. 1983 R. Sutcliff Blue Remembered Hills xii. 91 They..flipped screwed-up toffee papers onto the heads of the orchestra.

B. adj. Toffee-coloured; medium brown. Cf. sense A. 4 above.

1962 J. D. MacDonald Key to Suite (1968) vii. 116 A very pretty slender girl with toffee hair and dark-blue eyes. 1971 Homes & Gardens Aug. 57/1 The dining chairs are covered in a toffee and black houndstooth check. 1975 G. Howell In Vogue 259/2 (caption) A toffee and gold mesh sweater.