toffeen.adj.

1914 Illustr. London News 12 Sept. 380/1 Their opponents cannot ‘shoot for nuts’ (or ‘for toffee’, as one Tommy more expressly put it).

1932 D. L. Sayers Have his Carcase xii. 145 The Morgan wouldn't start, not for toffee.

1951 M. Kennedy Lucy Carmichael ii. 76 Those dreary girls you get in every Drama School who can't act for toffee.

1977 C. McCullough Thorn Birds xiii. 325 You can't kiss for toffee. You open your mouth too wide.

a1930 D. H. Lawrence Phoenix (1936) 588 The eternal flame of the high ideal is all my-eye. It's all toffee, my dear sirs.

1957 P. Wildeblood Main Chance 220 Working-class to the backbone, just like us... And if he's been filling you up with a lot of toffee to the contrary, more fool you.

1970 M. Tripp Man without Friends vii. 77 ‘It was all a lot of toffee,’ I said, ‘as Hardacre very well knows.’

1960 Woman's Own 19 Mar. 42/2 In stone, toffee, scarlet, green.

1976 Honolulu Star-Bull. 21 Dec. a–12 (advt.) In toffee, green or blue... Jacket with stitched back-belt.

1962 J. D. MacDonald Key to Suite (1968) vii. 116 A very pretty slender girl with toffee hair and dark-blue eyes.

1971 Homes & Gardens Aug. 57/1 The dining chairs are covered in a toffee and black houndstooth check.

1975 G. Howell In Vogue 259/2 (caption) A toffee and gold mesh sweater.

1857 T. Hughes Tom Brown's School Days i. iii. 73 It being only a step to the toffy shop.

1896 Westm. Gaz. 30 May 2/1 The effect..that a toffee drop has on a churchwarden when he finds it in the bag.

1917 B.E.F. Times 25 Dec. f. 3/2 The planting of Toffee-apples on the border of your neighbour's allotment will seriously interfere with the ripening of his gooseberries.

1930 J. Brophy & E. Partridge Songs & Slang Brit. Soldier: 1914–1918 171 Toffee Apples.—Trench mortar bombs, so called from the haft, like the skewer in a toffee-apple.

1937 ‘R. Crompton’ William—the Showman vi. 127 A little girl was leaning against the wall, eating a toffee-apple on a stick.

1957 Times 5 Sept. 11/4 We must kill the idea that Weymouth is just a candy-floss, toffee-apple resort.

1975 P. Fussell Great War & Mod. Mem. (1977) ix. 313 Everything from shovels,..and rolls of barbed wire, to..the perverse toffee-apple.

1976 Milton Keynes Express 16 July 8/2 Toffee apples and ice-cream, sweets and raffles, pony rides and competitions—these were all part of the scene.

1961 M. Kelly Spoilt Kill i. 30 Creased forehead, receding toffee-brown hair.

1978 R. Rendell Sleeping Life xvi. 129 Malina..wore jeans, of toffee-brown silk.

1958 B. Behan Borstal Boy iii. 230 I sometimes saw a fellow wearing overalls and walking round..carrying brushes and paint and sometimes glazing tools; hacking knife, glazing knife, toffee hammer,..and rule.

1978 D. Bloodworth Crosstalk vii. 54 Toby jugs and toffee hammers.

1943 J. L. Hunt & A. G. Pringle Service Slang 67 Toffee-nose, another of the expressions chiefly heard amongst the W.A.A.F. This refers to a snob or someone who considers herself ‘superior’. It is very apt since it implies that the nose is kept high to prevent it coming into contact with the mouth.

1958 Woman 12 Apr. 69/4 People thought I was a bit of a toffee-nose for the first few months because I didn't speak to them.

1962 John o' London's 29 Nov. 506/3 Christian was a gentleman, hence Mr. Brando's toffee-nose accent.

1974 New Society 3 Jan. 11/2 A car's desirability also creates the opposite reaction, in that envy is easily turned to resentment and aggression towards, for instance, the ‘jewboy’, the ‘poser’, the ‘toffee nose’ and the ‘business classes’ who sport expensive and powerful cars.

1925 E. Fraser & J. Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 287 Toffee-nosed, stuck up.

1928 T. E. Lawrence Let. 20 Jan. (1938) 568 A premature ‘life’ will do more to disgust the select and superior people (the R.A.F. call them the ‘toffee-nosed’) than anything.

1960 K. Amis Take Girl like You iv. 60 She did not want any more chat, but could not think how to say so without running the risk of sounding both stagey and toffee-nosed.

1978 Radio Times 28 Jan. 17/2 Let Elkan Allan and the rest of the toffee-nosed critics sneer; I shall be watching Big Jim McLain this Sunday and so, I am sure, will a lot of other people.

1958 G. Bellairs Corpse at Carnival i. 9 A little Manx cat..chasing a piece of toffee-paper.

1983 R. Sutcliff Blue Remembered Hills xii. 91 They..flipped screwed-up toffee papers onto the heads of the orchestra.