tolly School slang. Now arch. or Hist.
(ˈtɒlɪ)
[app. f. tallow n.]
A (tallow) candle.
| 1890 Barrère & Leland Dict. Slang. II. 360/2 Tolly (public schools), a candle. 1905 Daily News 2 Aug. 4 Who does not recognise a living experience in Hugh working after prohibited hours for a scholarship, caught by the master and ‘jawed for having a tolly alight’. 1924 E. Marsh tr. La Fontaine's Fables 77 The luckless tolly..Ended as a pool of grease. |
Also as v. intr. (Harrow), to work by candle-light after the lights have been extinguished; to ‘burn the midnight oil’; usu. with up.
| 1890 Barrère & Leland Dict. Slang. II. 360/2 Tolly up, to (Harrow School), to keep a candle alight after the gas has been turned off. 1894 Wilkins & Vivian Green Bay Tree I. 73 The process known as ‘tollying up’, or working by candle-light after the legal hours. |