toff
/tɔf/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.17 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A person of the upper class or with pretensions to it, who usually communicates an air of superiority.
British usage; Derogatory
Example Sentences
- "Last week down our alley came a toff, / Nice old geyser with a nasty cough, / Sees my missus, takes his topper off, / Quite in a gentlemanly way"
- "The cabman scratched his head. "Well, he wasn't altogether such an easy gentleman to describe. I'd put him at forty years of age, and he was of a middle height, two or three inches shorter than you, sir. He was dressed like a toff, and he had a black beard, cut square at the end, and a pale face. I don't know as I could say more than that.""
- "Now Freddy is young, practically twenty years younger than Higgins: he is a gentleman (or, as Eliza would qualify him, a toff), and speaks like one; […]"
- "‘Well, I got Parkes for one, and I got Atkinson for two, and got Ward of Dawson Street. Fine old chap he is, too—regular old toff, old Conservative! “But isn’t your candidate a Nationalist?” said he.[…]’"
- "I came home first class—up the front end with the toffs—semi-anaesthetised throughout the trip by caviar and free champagne—and to hell with frugality and the conservation of resources."
- "George Martin always seemed to me to be a "toff" and a gentleman even though his roots, like many of us, were in the common people. George has a touch of class that is quite impressive."
Etymology
Probably an alteration of tuft, referring to the gold tassel on the cap worn by titled undergraduates at English universities.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /tɔf/
- British English: /tɒf/
Usage
- Obsolete
- British usage
- Derogatory