tom1 (tom)

[ It happened one time that a Tom of Bedlam came up to him, and had a mind to have thrown him from the battlements, saying, "Leap, Tom , leap." Aubrey, Lives (Thomas More). " Tom Raw, the Griffin," a name which used to be apjoining the army. plied to a subaltern in India for a year and a day after his N. and Q., 7th ser., X. 172. 2. Used, like jack, attributively or in composition with the name of an animal, a male: as, a tom -cat; hence, as a noun, a male; specifically, a male cat. Tom = "male" is commonly used in the neighbourhood of Liphook, Hampshire, when little animals or birds are spoken of. The word frequently stands by itself, as in the question "Is it only the toms which sing?" i. e., only the male nightingales and cuckoos; but it also appears in nu merous compounds. I have heard tom -rat, tom -rabbit, tom mouse, tom - hedgehog, tom - ferret, tom -weasel, tom - robin, tom -thrush, tom -blackbird, tom -pigeon, tom - turkey. Tom cock is rarely used in referring to the domestic fowl, but such words as tom - brahma and tom - bantam are quite comA sparrow, however, is a jack-sparrow, and a dog N. and Q., 7th ser., VI. 109. mon. or larger animal is, I believe, never a tom. Cats in each clime and latitude that dwell, Brown, sable, sandy, grey, and tortoiseshell, Of titles obsolete, or yet in use, Tom , Tybert, Roger, Rutterkin, or Pu . Huddesford, Monody on Dick, an Academical Cat, Salma[gundi, 1791. (Quoted in N. and Q., 7th ser., V. 350.) 3t. The knave of trumps at gleek. Tom , the knave, is nine, and tidie, the four of trumps, is four: that is to say, you are to have two apiece of the other two gamesters. Wit's Interpreter, p. 365. ( Nares.) 4. A close-stool. Hall i well. [Prov. Eng.] -5. A machine formerly used in gold-washing, first in the southern Atlantic States, and later in California, where, however, it was soon superseded by the sluice. It is a trough set in an inclined position, about 20 inches wide at the upper and 30 at the lower end, near which for a short distance the wooden bottom is replaced by one of perforated sheet-iron, the holes being about an inch in diameter. Through these holes the finer gravel and sand with the gold pa into a somewhat wider flat box with riffles, on which the precious metal is caught by the help of the current and the neces sary amount of stirring with the shovel. The tom is something like the "rocker," except that it is longer, and has no rocking motion. Both are very rough and cheap machinery; and most of the stuff originally worked by their aid has been washed over again, and sometimes a great number of times. - Bottle Tom, the bottle-tit, a bird. Long tom. (a) Naut., a long gún as distinguished from a carronade; a large gun, especially when carried amidships on a swivel-carriage, etc., as distinguished from the smaller guns carried in broadside. (b) Same as def. 5, above. (c) A kind of large pitcher or water-can in use in England in the ear as Tomahawks. Tomahawk with Stone Head. advent of white traders iron was brought into use for the heads. The tomahawk is also used as a hatchet. ( Capt. John Smith.) The blunt side of the head is sometimes formed into a pipe-bowl which communicates with a tubular hollow made in the handle, the whole serving as a tobacco-pipe. It was and is the custom of the Indians to go through the ceremony of burying the tomahawk when they made peace; when they went to war they dug it up again. Hence the phrases "to bury the tomahawk " and "to dig up the tomahawk " are sometimes used by political speakers and writers with reference to the healing up of past disputes or the breaking out of new ones. Then smote the Indian tomahawk On crashing door and shattering lock. Bartlett . Whittier, Pen tucket. 2. In her., a bearing representing a hatchet of some fanciful form, supposed to be an Indian tomahawk. To bury the tomahawk. See the quota tion from Bartlett, above.