twosome (tw as t)

. [Eng. two, and suff. -some; A. S. same together.] A. As adj .: Applied to an act, as a dance, a game at golf, or the like, performed by two persons. "The Mu ulman's eyes danced twosome reels." Hood: Mi Kilmansegg. B. As subst.: A dance, game, or the like, performed by two persons. *twy-bill, 8. [TWIBILL.] twy-blāde, 8. [TWAYBLADE.] 4238 Terraces and Craven Hill, and bounded on the south by the Bays water Road, but it soon fell into disuse. "The name is derived from a brook called Tyburn which flowed down from Hampstead into the Thames."-R. Chambers: Book of Days , ii. 537. tylostoma *ty-er, s. [Eng. tye tie; -er.] One who ties or unites. ty-foôn', s. [TYPHOON.] *tyg, s. [Etym. doubtful.) Some kind of drinking ve el. "Or else to fetch a Tibourne-stretch Among the rest." Tu er: Husbandrie , p. 214. (2) To preach at Tyburn Cro : To be hanged. (In allusion to the speeches made by condemned criminals just before their execution.) "That sold i ours sterve or preche at Tiborne Cro e." Gas coigne: Steele Glas, p. 55. *Tyburn-pickadill, s . A halter. "Till they put on a Tyburne - pickadill . " Taylor: Praise of Hempseed . *Tyburn-ticket, s. A ticket granted (under 10 & 11 Will. III., c. 23, § 2) to prosecutors who had secured a capital conviction. This ticket exempted the prosecutor "from all manner of parish and ward offices within the parish wherein such felony was committed, which certificate shall be enrolled with the clerk of the peace of the county, on payment of 1s. and no more." This Act was repealed by 58 Geo. III., c. 70, pa ed June 3, 1818. Tyburntickets were transferable, and often sold for a high price (see extract). A Tyburn-ticket and the form of transfer was given in Notes & Queries (2nd ser., xi. 395, 437). "Last week, says the Stamford Mercury of March 27, 1818, a Tyburn- ticket was sold in Manchester for 2801." Notes and Queries , 2nd ser., xi. 395. *Tyburn-tiffany, s. A halter. (With allusion to Tyburn as a place of execution.) "Never regarding hangman's feare, Till Tyburn - tiffany he weare," Rowlands: Knave of Hearts. *Tyburn-tippet, s . A halter. *Tyburn-tree, s . The gallows. Ty-chon-ic, a. [See def.] Of or pertaining to Tycho Brahe or to his system of astronomy. Tycho was a nobleman of Swedish descent, whose grandfather had settled in Denmark. He was born at Knudsthorp on Dec. 14, 1546, three years after the death of Copernicus, carried on his chief observa tions first in an observatory of Uraniberg, built for him on the Island of Hven or Hoëne in the Baltic, and, on losing his Danish appointment, near Prague, where he died, Oct. 13, 1601. The leading points of the system were: (1) That the fixed stars all move round the earth, a view existing in the Ptolemaic system; (2) that all the planets, the earth only excepted, move round the sun, an opinion beyond that of Ptolemy, and to a large extent, though not fully adopting, the leading tenet of the Copernican system; (3) the sun with its attendant planets revolves round the earth; (4) that the orbits of the planets cannot have the solidity of an imagined primum mobile , since they are intersected in various directions by the orbits of comets. ty-coôn, s . [Jap. taikun . (See def)] A title a umed by the Shogun, or generali imo of Japan, between 1854 and 1868, in order to impre the amba adors of the Western Powers with the belief that he was the real ruler of the country. "Prior to the recent revolution [in 1868] the foreign treaties we concluded with the ministers of the Shogun at Yedo, under the erroneous impre ion that he was the IMG:content-1626.png:[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small] tycoon) was then for the first time used; it means literally the 'great ruler,' and was employed for the occasion by the Tokugawa officials to convey the impre ion that their chief was in reality the lord paramount." - Encyc. Brit . (ed. 9th), xiii. 582.