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Origin and history of toff

toff(n.)

lower-class London slang for "stylish dresser, man of the smart set," 1851 (Mayhew), said in OED (1989) to be probably an alteration of tuft, formerly an Oxford University term for a nobleman or gentleman-commoner (1755), in reference to the gold ornamental tassel worn on the caps of undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge whose fathers were peers with votes in the House of Lords. As a verb, "dress up, dress like a toff," by 1915. Related: Toffed; toffing.

also from 1851

Entries linking to toff

tuft(n.)

"bunch of soft and flexible things (hairs, feathers, twigs) fixed at the base with the upper ends loose," late 14c., of uncertain origin, perhaps from Old French touffe "tuft of hair" (14c.), which might be from Late Latin tufa "a kind of crest on a helmet" (also found in Late Greek toupha), or from a Germanic source (compare Old High German zopf, Old Norse toppr "tuft, summit;" see top (n.1)).

With excrescent -t following -f-, as in graft (n.1)). As a verb from 1530s. Related: Tufted; tufty.

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    Trends of toff

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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    metaphor
    "figure of speech by which a characteristic of one object is assigned to another, different but resembling  it or analogous to it; comparison by transference of a descriptive word or phrase," late 15c., methaphoris (plural), from French metaphore (Old French metafore, 13c.)
    cherub
    late 14c. as an order of angels, from Late Latin cherub, from Greek kheroub, from Hebrew kerubh (plural kerubhim) "winged angel," which according to Klein is perhaps related to Akkadian karubu "to bless," karibu "one who blesses," an epithet of the bull-colossus. Old English had
    kaput
    "finished, worn out, dead," 1895 as a German word in English, from German kaputt "destroyed, ruined, lost" (1640s), which in this sense probably is a misunderstanding of an expression from card-playing, capot machen, a partial translation into German of French faire capot, a phra
    watershed
    "line separating waters flowing into different rivers," 1803, from water (n.1) + shed in a topographical sense of "ridge of high ground between two valleys or lower ground, a divide," for which see shed (n.2). Perhaps a loan-translation of German Wasser-scheide. Figurative sense
    scramble
    1580s (intransitive), "make one's way by clambering, etc., struggle or wriggle along," also "strive with others or jostle and grasp rudely for a share or for mastery;" a word of obscure origin, perhaps a nasalized variant of scrabble (v.) "to struggle; to scrape quickly." OED poi
    crumb
    Middle English crome, crumme, from Old English cruma "fragment of bread or other food, a morsel, small fragment," from a West Germanic root of obscure origin (compare Middle Dutch crume, Dutch kruim, German Krume); perhaps from a PIE word for "small particle of bread" and cognate
    elite
    "a choice or select body, the best part," 1823, from French élite "selection, choice," from Old French eslite (12c.), fem. past participle of elire, elisre "pick out, choose," from Latin eligere "choose" (see election). Borrowed in Middle English as "chosen person" (late 14c.), e
    dust
    "fine, dry particles of earth or other matter so light that they can be raised and carried by the wind," Old English dust, from Proto-Germanic *dunstaz (source also of Old High German tunst "storm, breath," German Dunst "mist, vapor," Danish dyst "milldust," Dutch duist), from PI
    enthusiasm
    c. 1600, from French enthousiasme (16c.) and directly from Late Latin enthusiasmus, from Greek enthousiasmos "divine inspiration, enthusiasm (produced by certain kinds of music, etc.)," from enthousiazein "be inspired or possessed by a god, be rapt, be in ecstasy," from entheos "
    Jupiter
    also Juppiter, c. 1200, "supreme deity of the ancient Romans," from Latin Iupeter, Iupiter, Iuppiter, "Jove, god of the sky and chief of the gods," from PIE *dyeu-peter- "god-father" (originally vocative, "the name naturally occurring most frequently in invocations" [Tucker]), fr

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