Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 7.pdf/162

 Too. This is too much, phr. (colloquial).—The retort sarcastic or jocose: an echo of 'Artemus Ward among the Shakers.'

See Bag; Boots; Thin; Too-too.

Tool, subs. (colloquial).—1. A person employed by another (in reproach): a jackal, satellite, or dupe; a cat's-paw (B. E. and Grose). Hence, a poor tool = a clumsy worker, a bad hand at anything; a mere tool = a sycophant. Also (old) tool = a useless, shiftless fellow.

1650. Weldon, Court King James (1817), 10. [A man is compared to] a tool in the workman's hand.

c. 1696. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Tool, an Implement fit for any Turn, the Creature of any Cause or Faction; a meer Property, or Cat's Foot.

1699. Garth, Dispensary, iii. Fools were promoted to the council-board, Tools to the bench, and bullies to the sword.

1775. Sheridan, Duenna, ii. 4. Oh, the easy blockhead! what a tool I have made of him!

1813. Byron, Bride of Abydos, ii. 16. Such still to guilt just Alla sends—Slaves, tools, accomplices—no friends!

1861. Winthrop, Cecil Dreeme, v. He had been a clerk, tool, agent, slave, of the great Densdeath.

2. (old).—A weapon: spec. a sword.

c. 1360. Sir Gawayne [E.E.T.S.], 2261. Then the gome in the grene graythed hym swythe Gedere vp hys grymme tole, Gawayne to smyte.

1383. Chaucer, Cant. Tales, 'Nun's Priest's Tale,' 96. Non niggard ne no fool, Ne him that is agast of every tool.

1582. Stanyhurst, Æneis [Arber], 63. Mye tools make passadge through flame and hostilitye Greekish.

1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, i. 1. 37. Gre. Draw thy tool Sam. My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.

3. (thieves').—Usually in pl. = (a) pistols; (b) housebreaking implements; (c) the hands, the forks (q.v.); and (d) in sing. = a small boy employed to creep through windows, etc., to effect entry. Hence to tool = to burgle, to pick pockets, to steal; fixed for the tools = convicted for possession of illegal instruments; tooler = a burglar or pickpocket; moll-tooler = a female thief.

1890. Boldrewood, Squatter's Dream, 157. He possessed himself of the sixteen-shooter, and handed the Snider to the Doctor We'll be a match for all the blessed traps with these here tools.

4. (colloquial).—Generic for equipment (cf. all senses): spec. (artists') = brushes; (authors') = books, especially works of reference; (medical) = surgical instruments (see quot. 1706, sense 6).

5. (driving).—A whip. Hence, as verb = to handle a team of horses skilfully; also (loosely) = to drive: applied to all means of locomotion—engine, cart, bicycle, motor-car, etc.; to tool along = to go quickly.

1849. Lytton, Caxtons, xiii. 4. He could tool a coach.

1883. Harp. Mag., lxv. 579. Only kept from stopping altogether by the occasional idle play of Emerson's whip So we tooled on.

1885. D. Teleg., 18 Nov. The crack coaches were tooled by expert 'knights of the bench.'

1887. Jessop, Arcady, i. The high-stepping mare that tools him along through the village street.

1899. Whiteing, John St., xiv. See about the coach for Ascot—driving down myself for the Nimrod. Tool you down in style.