Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also tuft-worshipper) an undergraduate who pursues the acquaintance of rich or titled students.

1755		Caledonian Mercury 13 Dec. 1/1: The University [sic] of London is not without its Tuft-Hunters, who fasten, like leeches, on a young Man of Fortune at his first coming to Town.
1755		Connoisseur No. 97 31: I remember to have heard a cousin of mine, [...] formerly at Cambridge, [...] mentioning a sect of Philosophers, distinguished by the rest of the collegians under the appellation of Tuft-Hunters. These were [...] the followers (literally speaking) of the fellow-commoners, noblemen, and other rich students .
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Tuft hunter, a university parasite, one who courts the acquaintance of nobility, whose caps are adorned with a gold tuft.
1799		Sporting Mag. Dec. XV 125/1: In plain English, a tuft-hunter, is a flatterer, toad-eater, or abject dependant.
1803		C.K. Sharpe Correspondence (1888) I 18: A gentle tuft-worshipper, meek Master Pick-bone Who with pleasure will suffer his eares to be cufft By any Scotch cousin of any Scotch tuft.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1835		Blackburn Standard 9 Sept. 6/3: The reviewer of the Dublin University Magazine [...] administers the knout to the little tuft-hunter’s back with keen but righteous severity.
1923		Sligo Champion 29 Dec. 3/5: A ‘tuft-hunter’ was originally a y undergraduate at oxford or Cambridge who obsequiously courted persons with titles.

2. a snob, a toady, a social climber.

1832		Newcastle Jrnl 15 Sept. 2/5: This is paltry — worthy of the narrow mind of a tuft-hunter.
1834		Westmoreland Gaz. 28 June 4/5: And if he had been a parvenu, it would have been still worse, because a tuft-hunter, and runner after titles, is always a mean being.
1838		Lytton Alice (1873) II 56: In early life he had been something of a ‘tuft-hunter.’.
1845		Blackwood’s Mag. LVI 572: There are few such thorough tuft-hunters as your genuine Oxford Don.
1851		Advocate (Dublin) 21 May 10/1: The great and high-born give that encouragement to tift-hunters.
1853		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) I 71: [note] As ‘Tufts’ and ‘Tuft-hunters’ have become ‘household words’, it is perhaps needless to tell anyone that the gold tassel is the distinguishing mark of a nobleman.
1861		T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxford (1880) 84: My horror of being thought a tuft-hunter had become almost a disease.
1873		Sl. Dict. 330: Tuft-hunter a hanger on to persons of quality or wealth. Originally University slang, but now general.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Mar. 6/1: [He] is the ‘whipper-in’ of the society, driving up all the tabbies, toadies, and tuft-hunters of the neighbourhood so assiduously as to render the consequences terrible should an uninitiated visitor be so unfortunate as to sit down in the first unfilled seat.
1881		J.C. Reddie Amatory Experiences of a Surgeon 12: Lord L — had extended his patronage to me, that that was enough to excite the jealousy of the tuft hunters in the neighbourhood.
1894		G. du Maurier Trilby 223: Little Billee was no tuft-hunter – he was the tuft-hunted.
1894		Truth (Sydney) Feb. 1/2: ‘Truth’ Thinks [...] That Robert Reid [...] like other tuft-hunters, will (of course [...] be on the look out for a title.
1902		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 2 Mar. 1/1: The loss of his luggage will seriously mar the tuft-hunter’s triumphal entry into London.
1914		Truth (Melbourne) 10 Jan. 11/7: Tufthunters, toadies, pickthanks, lickplatters, cringelings, snobs, and the James Chawles yellowplushes of the ‘servants’ ’alls’.
1917		Union Jack 5 May 17: They were here now to make the ‘mouldy tuft-hunters’ smart.
1928		E. Milton To Kiss the Crocodile 138: An impossible woman. A tuft-hunter. Avid for notabilities.
1967		J. Orton Diaries (1986) 2 May 148: ‘He’s interested in you purely because of your plays.’ I said, ‘Why are you surprised by this? [...] He’s a tuft-hunter.’.
2005		Guardian 7 Apr. 🌐 In the view of New York-based art critic and Guardian contributor Robert Hughes, the reviews are entirely justified. ‘Hirst is in my opinion a wildly overrated tufthunter,’ he said. ‘He’s a perfect example of the triumph of Saatchi’s values over aesthetic sense.’.

3. (US black) a womanizer.

1961

C. Himes Pinktoes (1989) 57: Her first glance at Julius [...] had been enough to convince her that he had not caught any tuft that night, no matter how great a tuft-hunter he might have been in the past.