toby
toby Lexical Profile
toby Game Scores & Validity
• noun
New Zealand An underground stopcock or shut-off valve located at the boundary of a property that controls the domestic water supply from the main pipe.
"Before replacing the burst pipe under the house, the plumber turned off the water at the street toby."
A beer mug or small jug crafted in the form of a stout old man wearing a three-cornered hat; a Toby jug.
"The antique collector displayed a rare eighteenth-century ceramic toby on the mantelpiece."
British The public highway or main road, especially in historical cant as the haunt of highwaymen, or a section of territory frequented by vagrants and street performers.
"In eighteenth-century criminal slang, robbing travelers along the high toby was a capital offense."
• Rhymes for toby
Word Origin & Etymology
The sense of a novelty drinking vessel is shortened from 'Toby jug', derived from the 18th-century fictional character Toby Philpot, a jovial beer drinker in a popular song of 1761. The New Zealand water-valve sense likely derives from the Scottish dialect word 'toby' (stopcock) or the Irish Gaelic 'tobar' (well or spring).