taffy n.
(US) insincere and obvious flattery; deceptive and deluding talk.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 25 Oct. 14/3: Now, look here, young fellow, don’t you give us any taffy’. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Dundee Eve. Teleg. 2 Apr. 4/3: [The photographer] employs a [...] pretty girl to talk ‘taffy’ [...] into the other ear of the sitter. | |
| Bill Nye and Boomerang 14: What ye givin’ us? [...] You cannot fill up the King of Syracuse with taffy. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Oct. 13/1: Is this ‘taffy on a pole,’ or a solid chunk of truth? | |
| Dumont’s Joke Book 11: What a great thing it is to sit in your own room and make love to your girl over the telephone wires. Oh! dear, it must be nice – with all the little sparrows sitting on the wire picking the taffy that’s passing to and fro. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Oct. 10/3: God bless us all, indeed! when it is considered necessary to cable such abject taffy as this. | |
| I’m from Missouri 46: They are throwing the taffy at Mother and getting her woozy with the happy conversation. | |
| ‘Oh You Candy Kid’ 🎵 This isn’t taffy, I’m just daffy over you. | |
| Daily Trib. (Bismarck, ND) 13 Apr. 4/5: I’m not giving you any taffy. | |
| ‘Misc. Notes’ in AS III:3 259: Dad used to give one ‘taffy,’ but now we serve ‘applesauce.’. | |
| Georgie May 62: Ah don’ crave to give you no taffy an ah won’ lam you less you git me riled. |
In compounds
1. (US) an empty-headed individual.
| Baytown Sun (TX) 20 Dec. 6/2: [cartoon caption] ‘I don’t know what your game is, taffy-head, but I’m getting out’. | |
| Times (Shreveport, LA) 2 June 21/2: The little taffy-head [...] had a serious complaint. ‘Your dog [...] bit me’. |
2. a braggart, a boaster, a ‘big-head’.
| Dear ‘Herm’ 142: Zeno’s opponents said that what that taffy-head had really proved is that there is no arrow. |