tollyn.
/ˈtɒli/ School slang. Now archaic or Historical.
A (tallow) candle.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > light > artificial light > an artificial light > candle > [noun] > made from animal fat > by dipping in tallow
tallow candle1452
dip1815
tallow1819
dip-candle1829
tolly1890
1890 A. Barrère & C. G. Leland Dict. Slang II. 360/2 Tolly (public schools), a candle.
1905 H. A. Vachell Hill xiii An Olympian is privileged to work a little longer by the light of the useful ‘tolly’.
1905 Daily News 2 Aug. 4 Who does not recognise a living experience in Hugh working after prohibited hours for a scholarship, caught by the master and ‘jawed for having a tolly alight’.
1924 E. Marsh tr. La Fontaine Fables 77 The luckless tolly..Ended as a pool of grease.
Derivatives
tolly v. Harrow (intransitive) to work by candle-light after the lights have been extinguished; to ‘burn the midnight oil’; usually with up.
ΚΠ
1890 A. Barrère & C. G. Leland Dict. Slang II. 360/2 Tolly up, to (Harrow School), to keep a candle alight after the gas has been turned off.
1894 W. H. Wilkins & H. Vivian Green Bay Tree I. 73 The process known as ‘tollying up’, or working by candle-light after the legal hours.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1986; most recently modified version published online March 2019).
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n.1890