Toff
/tɒf/ noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 An elegantly dressed person. obsolete
"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"
- 2 informal term for an upper-class or wealthy person wordnet
- 3 A person of the upper class or with pretensions to it, who usually communicates an air of superiority. Ireland, UK, derogatory
"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; […]"
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"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"
Etymology
Probably an alteration of tuft, referring to the gold tassel on the cap worn by titled undergraduates at English universities.